Come home
by Selective scifi junkie
Summary: Pre cannon. When a mission in Serbia is blown open, it will take all of Adam's willpower just to survive, for as long as it takes the rest of his cell to find him in the dust storm. Adam/Fiona.
1. Chapter 1

**Come home**

**Summary: **Pre cannon. When a mission in Serbia is blown open, it will take all of Adam's willpower just to survive, for as long as it takes the rest of his cell to find him in the dust storm.

**Spoilers:** A little of seasons 3, 4 and 5, very vaguely. If you are familiar with all the Carters, there will be nothing dangerous here.

**Set: **1998

**Rating: **T for strong, intentional violence. Torture implied, only slightly described.

**Pairings: **Adam/Fiona.

**Genres: **Angst, suspense, drama.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing of Spooks, only the original characters and their interactions are mine.

6/5/98/

"Do you want tea?"

"Please. Adam, you're buttons aren't matching up." Adam looked down.

"So they're not." He started correcting them, waiting for the kettle to boil..

"Cereal or toast?"

"Oh, toast definitely. It's my last chance to eat like an Englishman for three days." Fiona laughed. Adam put a mug of tea down in front of her, his shirt still half-undone.

"Come here." She grabbed him by the lapels, he offered no resistance, and carried on doing his shirt up.

"You know, it would help if you did something sensible with your clothes in the evening rather than just throwing them across the room."

"Wasn't very high on my list of priorities last night." Fiona laughed again. "I do pick them up in the mornings, I'm not completely useless."

"No, just mostly useless." Adam laughed. "Do you know what day it is today?"

"Ah... May 6th, Tuesday, and day twenty-seven."

"So yesterday or today-"

"But you haven't?"

"No."

"And no sign this morning?"

"No. There's no point getting exited yet, but-"

"But." Adam repeated softly, wrapping his arms around her. "That's news I'd like to come back to." Fiona returned the gesture. "Do you feel...? You don't feel sick or anything?"

"No, apart from... it's never easy when you go away like this, no contact." He smiled.

"I'll be fine. I've been doing this for more than ten years. It's only three days." Fiona nodded.

"I know, but-"

"I know. Serbia's a minefield, but I've got a metal detector. I know what I'm doing. And, if it makes you feel any better, Sam says I'm like a terrier on speed when you're away."

"Like a terrier on speed?"

"Single-minded to the point of obsessive about work, and apparently I develop a `kill mode`, whatever he meant by that." Fiona smiled fleetingly.

The doorbell rang.

"Sam?" Fiona asked.

"Probably."

"Wakey wakey in there." A male voice called through the letter box. Definitely Sam.

"Tell me the password and I'll let you in." Adam replied, fumbling for the keys.

"Oh shut up."

"Wrong." Adam said, and opened the door.

"Hey mate." Sam offered his hand to Adam who shook it.

"Hey."

"Forgiven me for last week?" Sam asked. He'd left Adam to get out of a building being stormed by police on his own, choosing to pursue a fleeing Ugandan spook, rather than helping his friend. Adam smiled, closing the door behind Sam.

"I'd have done the same thing. Nothing to forgive." Fiona walked over, Sam greeted her briefly, as he had Adam.

"How was Egypt?" She asked.

"Egyptian." Sam replied with a shrug. "We need to get going, Adam." Adam nodded and went back to the table for his briefcase. Fiona turned to face him and shook her hair back, staring at him. Adam didn't need telling twice. He laid his free hand on her neck, but her face was already tilted up towards his. She laid her hands on the side of his head as he lowered his mouth to hers. She closed her eyes. She and Adam had done the physical aspect of goodbye last night, this was just a nod of the head to it. Adam coaxed her mouth open.

Sam coughed indiscreetly. Fiona drew back.

"Be careful." Adam said, not looking round at Sam.

"Same to you."

"I'm always careful. Three days. That's nothing. You'll barely even have time to miss me."

o0o0o0o

"Morning Fiona." Sarah called, as Fiona walked in to the office.

"Morning."

"`As Adam gone?" Tash called from her desk, cockney accent as strong as ever.

"Yes. How did last night go?" Tash shrugged.

"Wasn't 'ard. Only 'ad to look at 'im once."

"He took the get-out clause well?" Tash shrugged again.

"Don't think 'e thought I was brigh' enough to've made i' up." That was Tash's speciality; pretending to be completely empty headed. As a result, no one seemed to mind her overhearing things, which had made her invaluable more than once.

"Which one did you use?" Fiona asked.

"Dog run over When d'the guys get back? We're a bit low on eye candy."

"Greg's back today." Sarah offered.

"'E don't count. Where's Sam?"

"Dropping Adam off." Fiona replied

"When's Adam back?"

"Three days, but don't you even think of trying to get your hands on my husband." Tash raised her hands.

"Jus' lookin' at 'im."

"Shut up." Sarah said quickly. All three women picked up paper from their in trays.

"Morning all." Chris's deep voice resounded through the room. All three of them responded.

"Is this the extent of my team that's in this morning?" Chris continued.

"Sam will be here in an hour or so." Fiona repeated.

"Oh yes, he's seeing Adam on his way. Greg?"

"Gets in at 1400 hours." Sarah supplied.

"Alright, I'm sure you all have work to do. Just make sure you've reviewed Jack's report by eleven and Greg's by the time he gets back, vet their conclusions." Chris disappeared in to his office, white hair visible long after the black of his suit in the shadow of the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Come home**

**Chapters in this fic will tend to be very short, but hopefully posted quite frequently.**

8/5/98

Adam glanced over his shoulder one final time before turning down the street on which Josif, the asset he needed to meet, rented a bedsit, just for rendezvous. He'd employed every trick he'd had a chance to, and was now fairly sure he hadn't been followed.

A woman walked quickly past him, a boy, not more than three, on her hip. Adam looked after her for a second, wondering. Was Fiona pregnant, in spite of what she'd thought about herself, with his child? Did she know yet? His child. The thought ignited a warmth in his chest, a sense of pride, not just because of... It was quite unusual for spooks to have children, more so if both parents were. That said, it was unusual for a spook to maintain any relationship for over a year. He and Fiona had defied the odds so far; their third anniversary had been in April. He had complete faith in her, and she in him. They'd find ways. She'd be a great mother, he was sure. He just hoped he'd be able to match her as a father.

Adam shook himself mentally. His focus was usually much better than this. Eighteen more hours, then he could go home to her. He could find out what the future held for them, celebrate with her if she was pregnant, and if she wasn't, trying to do something about it usually cheered them both up. For now, he had to pick the intel up from Josif without anyone knowing he had.

He broke in to a run to cover the last thirty metres or so to the house where Josif's bedsit was. The front door wasn't locked. Adam pushed it open and stepped back, wary. His hand hovered over his pistol. No response. He crossed the threshold.

"Sofia?" He called, Josif's coded signal, listening for an answering voice. Nothing. Josif's bedsit was upstairs. Maybe he was out of earshot. Adam was reluctant to call any louder. He put one foot on the stairs. It creaked. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He looked around again. No sign of any movement. He drew his pistol, not quite able to shake the feeling of being watched by someone he couldn't see.

Once Adam had reached the second landing, he called out again, back to a wall, looking around nervously.

"Sofia?" Still nothing. Adam looked around one final time, then left the corner he was backed in to. The upstairs landing extended left and right. Josif's room was third on the right, he knew. Adam stepped away from the wall and padded down the corridor. The silence was deafening.

The lock on Josif's door had been shot through. Adam swore softly. Had Josif been snatched or killed, or had he got away? He touched the door with his foot. It creaked horribly loudly.

Two soft footfalls behind. Adam began to turn, pistol levelled, saw out of the corner of his eye metal glinting, moving fast. He ordered his body to duck, but too late. Pain erupted across the back of his head. Blackness eclipsed his vision. Too shocked event to cry out, Adam Carter crumpled to the floor.

**Please review, even if you only have criticism.**


	3. Chapter 3

Come home

**Please take notice of the dates. The story will be easier to follow if you do.**

8/5/98

Sarah sat down between Fiona and Tash. Sam was standing at the head of the table, opposite Chris. Greg was sitting opposite her, twiddling his thumbs.

"This," Sam began, pointing at the screen behind him, "is Atif Hakeem. Iraqui by birth, but Saudi raised. Intel from section C in Five suggests that – Fiona, are you still with us?" Fiona shook her head quickly.

"Sorry." Sam stared at her for a moment, then carried on.

"OK. Intel suggests that he may be smuggling weaponry back to his birth land."

"What kind of weaponry?" Chris asked.

"Artillery. Specifically Surface to Air Missiles."

"That's you, ain't it?" Tash asked, grinning. "SAMs." Sam frowned at her.

"Returning to the real world, obviously we don't missile systems falling in to Iraqui hands."

"What would you suggest?" Chris asked.

"Infiltrate, find out what's really going on there and, if we need to, shut him – Fiona?" She jerked herself upright again.

"Sorry."

"Are you OK?" Sam asked frowning.

"I'm fine. I just don't sleep well when Adam's..." Sam nodded.

"Fair enough."

"He's back tomorrow," Fiona continued, "so I'll be back to normal the day after."

"Yeah?" Tash raised her eyebrows. "You ain't gonna get no more sleep that night." Sarah kicked Tash under the table. Tash glowered at her.

"Sam, you were saying?" Chris interjected before Tash could retaliate. Sarah had already lifted her legs out of reached.

"Yeah, if we need to, we shut him down."

"Isn't it section E's job?"

"Not really. They came across him looking for someone else and flagged him up as a point of interest. And they're Five. You know what they're like about going abroad."

"Do we have a way to infiltrate?" Chris asked.

"Yes." Sam replied. "He's looking for a secretary. He works in an oil firm, apart from anything else, and he's looking for a secretary with good computer skills."

"So who do we send?" Chris asked the room at large.

"Jack and Adam aren't options." Sarah started, glancing up and down the table. "We can't – Fiona, are you sure you're OK?" Fiona was sitting with her neck arched forwards, head in hands, breathing hard. She stood up.

"Excuse me." She walked out quickly, almost ran. That was worrying. The five remaining people in the room looked at each other. Sam broke the silence.

"Sarah, could you go and see if she's OK?" Sarah nodded, getting up.

"If she's not?"

"Send her home." Chris provided. "She won't be much use to us if she gets any worse than this." Sarah nodded again and started walking out, after Fiona. "Shame." Chris continued. "I was going to send her to Arabia."

Sarah's first guess as to where Fiona was turned out to be right; the ladies' toilets. The sound of harsh coughing came from one of the cubicles. Sarah tapped on the door.

"Fiona?" It sounded as if she was spitting in to the toilet. "Fiona, are you OK?" Two more spits.

"Yes."

"You've just been sick, haven't you?" One more spit.

"Yes."

"OK. I'll get you some water." Sarah left, hearing Fiona's quiet thanks.

When she returned, Fiona was standing by the sink, washing her face. Sarah offered her the water.

"Thanks." Fiona's hands were shaking slightly as she started to rinse her mouth, but she seemed to be getting steadier.

"How do you feel? You don't feel faint or anything?" Fiona shook her head.

"I feel better for throwing up, strange as it sounds."

"How much better?"

"Quite a lot. Enough to go back to briefing in a few minutes." Sarah hesitated while Fiona drank before asking her next question.

"Fiona, are you... Are you pregnant?" Fiona just looked at her. "I don't mean to be nosy, but, you told me you and Adam were trying a while back, that was sickness, it's 9:30AM, so..."

"God, I hope I am." Fiona said quietly. She smiled nervously at Sarah, who smiled back.

"Are you overdue?" Fiona nodded.

"Two days."

"Have you tested?"

"No. I don't want to, not yet."

"Why not? It's a big thing."

"I don't want Adam to be the last one to know." Fiona said calmly. "It'd be his child too, and if I am, I want to celebrate it with him." There was a long silence. "Shall we go back to briefing?"


	4. Chapter 4

Come home

**One note: Please take notice of the dates.**

8/5/98

Pain. The back of Adam's head was throbbing. His legs were coiled uncomfortably under him. His hands were tied, no, cuffed, behind him, round a vertical metal girder, that was what it felt like. He opened his eyes and tried to lift his head.

His neck muscles protested painfully. He let out a soft groan.

"Adam?" A small, scared voice called his name in the dark. Adam blinked hard, not sure whether darkness or a bag was obscuring his vision.

"Who's there?" His own voice sounded hoarse.

"Josif." Adam strained his eyes and ears. The voice sounded young, the accent was Serbian, but until he could see Josif, he wasn't going to say anything more. A dull fear began to rise in Adam's chest as he waited for his eyes to adjust, he couldn't feel a bag. He'd been caught. He'd been caught and he had no idea who by, or what they were planning to do with him. He was a captured spook. Prospects were never good. He'd only been caught once before. Adam bit back those memories, the paralysing fear that came with them.

Josif. He was kneeling maybe twelve feet away, cuffed to a girder, like Adam was. Josif was breathing fast, fear written all over his face..

"Are you hurt?" Adam asked.

"My head..." Josif began. Adam nodded.

"Do you know how long we've been here?" Josif shook his head.

"What will they do to us Adam?"

"No real names." Adam said quickly, evading the question. "Call me Tom White from now on. What can I call you? Just make a name up."

"Matteus... Valentina?" Josif suggested. Adam nodded.

"OK."

"What will they do to us?" Josif repeated. Adam hesitated, knowing the answer too well, from training, from what they found on raids where spooks were held, from what he and Fiona had gone through in... He bit back his own fear.

"They might try to ransom us, for money or other prisoners."

"How long would that take?"

"Depends on what they ask for."

"What if your people say no?"

"Then they'll come and get us." Always assuming they could find them.

"Ransom isn't the only thing they might want, is it?" Josif asked quietly. Adam hesitated again.

"No, but we'll deal with anything else as it comes."


	5. Chapter 5

Come home

**Reviews would be appreciated, even if it's a spelling correction. I only have one reviewer as yet.**

8/5/98

"Alright all." Chris's deep voice broke the silence. "It's a quarter past eight and we've done well today. Machines off, lock everything up, Sam, check Jack and Adam's status reports, then hand them over to the night desk." Fiona rose gratefully with the rest. She was tired, much more than usual. Another indicator of pregnancy, or she hoped so. Putting documents back in the right files, locking them up, then hiding the keys in safeboxes, then hiding the keys for those safeboxes was a calming ritual, even without the banter between Adam and Sam. Anyone who didn't know where to look could spend hours finding the keys, then hours more matching them to the cabinets. A few people had been caught trying.

"Tut tut." Sam said, staring at a screen.

"What?" Chris asked.

"Adam's fifteen minutes overdue for his status report." Fiona felt her stomach clench.

"And you made us all look for that?" Chris asked. "It's notable if Adam reports in on time. He's hopeless. An hour late for him is as worrying as a minute late for anyone else. Get some perspective man."

"What do you want me to tell the night desk?" Sam asked.

"Flag as concern if we've had nothing by half past nine. If he still hasn't reported in by midnight local time, which is... what? Two o'clock in the morning here?"

"Yes." Greg interjected.

"Then we begin to worry. If he calls in, they're to tell him off for worrying his wife." Sam grinned. Fiona mimicked him nervously.

"He's right, Fiona. Knowing Adam, he'll call in in an hour and say he was following someone and lost track of time." Fiona nodded.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

"And it won't be the last." Chris added. "Now home, all of you. Get a good night's sleep and, Fiona, if I hear you've called the night desk to check on Adam, there will be trouble. He knows what he's doing. He'll be fine." And with that, Chris swept from the office, herding the rest of them.

**I appologise for the shortness of this chapter and promise that the next one will be longer, at least twice as long.**


	6. Chapter 6

Come home

**Sorry for the delay. I've been rather busy this week. Also, a warning. It gets much heavier in this chapter, there's fairly detailed description of violence and a small amount of cursing.**

* * *

9/5/98

Adam gasped for air. Kick after booted kick impacted his stomach. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He could hear Josif's cries through the bag over his head. The bag which stank of the fear of god knew how many prisoners, and the blood of some.

He was not going to break. They were not going to get a useful word out of him. He was going –

A booted foot came down hard on Adam's bare one. He shouted in pain and drew his legs up.

"How many times?" A voice shouted next to his head, leaving one ear ringing. Adam felt himself being pulled up to a sitting position. Pain tore in to his side. He gasped again. Cracked rib? Possibly. The bag was pulled from his head. Adam spat blood-tinged fluid on to the floor and stayed still, gasping. That last bout had been worse than the previous two, the throbbing foot was new, but, as his breathing began to slow, Adam knew he still had resistance left. "Who do you work for!" The same voice shouted. The shouter was pacing between him and Josif, glaring at them. Silence, apart from Josif's dry sobs and Adam's laboured breathing. "Answer me!" Adam looked hard at Josif, willing him to stay strong. The shouter spat on the ground. "Very well. You give me no choice. Bag their heads. Hans, find something hard and wooden, are boots are too soft, perhaps." Adam gritted his teeth, biting his tongue as rough hands forced the bag over his head again.

"No!" Josif cried. "No! Please, stop! Wait? Please!" Silence. The bag was pulled from Adam's head again.

"What?" Shouter asked slowly, walking over to Josif. "Why should I wait for traitors?"

"His name is Adam Carter." Josif said in a rush.

"Matteus-" Adam started, but a kick in the painful rib cut him short.

"Mine is Josif Mihailovitch."

"Matteus, stop-" Adam was silenced again, this time by a cold, sharp piece of steel pressing in to his neck.

"And who do you work for?" Shouter growled to Josif. Adam stared emphatically at him. There was a long silence.

"He works for the British government." Shit. This was about to get bad, really bad.

"So," Shouter spat. "you sell the knowledge of your own people to these interfering mongrels. You are worse than a whore." Josif bowed his head. "You pass your knowledge to this..." Shouter flung a hand in Adam's general direction. Josif shook his head. Bad. Very bad. He was going to give up his handler, Jed Ivory. Even the false name Jed had given Josif could lead these men, whoever they were, to Jed. Thinking of that, how had Josif known Adam's real name? Someone had messed up. Adam continued to stare hard at Josif, not knowing what else he could do. The knife was still in his neck.

"Who do you sell secrets to?" Shouter snarled. Josif froze up. Shouter drove his foot hard into Josif's abdomen. Josif cried out. Shouter grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up. "Who?"

"His name is Alex Chekov. I used to meet him where you caught me. That is all I know." Shouter released Josif's head.

"Good. Give this one water." He turned slowly to Adam. "And you, Adam Carter? Is there anything you want to say?" Adam stared coldly back at Shouter, forcing any trace of fear off his face. "You are trying my patience, Adam Carter. That is not wise."

"Go to hell." Adam said shortly, fearing suspense more than pain. Shouter cuffed him across the face. Adam had relaxed his neck in time to roll with the blow, but the side of his face was still smarting. Shouter hit him again, this time in the stomach, winding him.

"Don't panic." Adam told himself firmly. "You'll be able to breathe in a few seconds. Just calm down and wait." Another blow sent him sprawling sideways, hands still tied behind his back.

Adam didn't know, or want to know, how long that beating went on. He wasn't hooded, so he could try to evade the blows, or shield himself with his legs. But with his hands tied, there wasn't much he could do.

Once it was over, however long that was, Adam was pulled back to his knees and tied to the girder again, legs, chest, one foot throbbing continually. Even after their captors had left, Adam and Josif were silent for a long time. Eventually, shifting his weight, Adam said,

"I don't think that rib is broken, you know." Josif made a sound half way between a cough and a sob.

"How could you do that? Just lie there while..." Adam paused for a moment before answering.

"Perspective, I suppose." Josif looked at him blankly. "Look, these men wouldn't have a problem with killing us would they?" Josif shook his head. "So why haven't they?" Josif shook his head again. "Because we've got information they want; names, places times. That's information they don't have. For as long as that's true, they've got a reason to keep us alive. As soon as we've given up all we know, we're useless to them. And then they'll kill us."

"Adam, I'm not brave like you. I can't-"

"Brave isn't something you're born with." Adam cut him off. "Brave is a way of behaving. You can decide to be brave, just like I can." There was a moment's silence.

"Adam, are we going to die here?"

"No." Adam answered matter-of-factly. It wasn't much of a lie, by Spook standards. He didn't know that they were going to die. "No, of course we're not. I'll have missed my check in by now, they'll be looking for me. And we've both got things to get back for. What's yours?"

"What?"

"What in your life do you need to get back to?" Josif thought for a minute.

"My sister's wedding. It is in June, at the church where we grew up. I was going to give her away, our father died two years ago."

"You are going to give her away." Adam corrected. "What's the church like?" Josif began to describe it, in so much detail Adam thought he could have planned a siege of the place. Richard, Adam's first head of unit, had once told Adam that, if captured in a group, spend every moment you can describing far away things to each other (and `never be taken`, of course). Richard had claimed that it let you isolate yourself from whatever was going on around you. At that moment, Adam had to agree with him.

"And you?" Josif asked when he had finished, sounding much calmer. "What do you have to get back to?" Adam smiled.

"I won't say her name, because she's one of us. She's a spook."

"She? A woman?" Adam nodded.

"The kind of woman you have to look twice at to believe, because you don't think anyone could be that beautiful."

"What does she look like?" Adam smiled again.

"Hair so dark it looks black unless there's sunlight on it, always feels warm when you touch it. Eyes so deep you think you could fall in to them. Her skin looks gold in the sun. She looks delicate, but I've seen her take down men bigger than me in moments, get straight back up after she's been thrown across a room."

"Is she with MI6?"

"Cannot answer that question." Adam said mechanically. "If they're listening, it might put officers in danger. But they are coming for us."


	7. Chapter 7

Come home

**Sorry to say, there will be nothing over the weekend.**

9/5/98

Fiona's mouth was dry, her heart was hammering, there was a tightness in her throat and stomach which usually preceded vomiting.

"OK." Sam said loudly. "Adam checked in at 1400 hours local time, 1200 hours GMT. He was due to clock in again at-"

"Eight o'clock in the evening, Greenwich Meantime, ten o'clock local time." Chris took over. "He is, at present, twelve hours, twenty-six minutes overdue."

"That's bad, even by Adam's standards." Fiona breathed, not trusting her voice with more. Sam nodded.

"Chris, this is a red flag now."

"I know. I told Greg to report him missing this morning if he hadn't reported in. He's doing it now."

"Tash, spread a map of the area out on the briefing room table. Sarah, get on the phone with Fire-eye. He's the one Adam was meant to be working with."

"Done that." Greg called. "Fire-eye says he sent Adam out to get intel from an asset at 1700 hours local time yesterday and hasn't seen or heard from him since. No one has." 1700 hours local time yesterday. 1500 hours here. Almost 18 hours unaccounted for. What could have happened to him in that time?

"Pull the asset's file, look for anything useful." Sam was giving orders again. "Sarah, call Fire-eye and tell him to get the rendez-vous checked out, by a group. We don't want anyone else to disappear. Fiona, sit down and put your head between your knees. You look like you're about to faint."

Fiona sank down, breathing hard and shakily. The backs of her eyes prickled.

"Can you blame her?" Sarah asked.

Where on earth was Adam? What had happened to him? Was he dead? Captured? Pinned down? Or left somewhere alive, but too badly hurt to reach help, dying even now, alone and helpless?

"Fiona?" Sam knelt down in front of her. She raised her head, eyes brimming with unshed tears. Sam sighed. "Fiona, I know this is tough, I know you're scared. So am I. No one wants to lose Adam, we all know what he means to you. I need you with us, OK? You're usually quite good with this, aren't you?" Fiona nodded. "We both know Adam's good. He's good at getting himself out of danger, and he's very difficult to kill." Sam paused. "Has something else happened between you? Is there something I need to know?"

Something had happened. She was fairly sure of it now. She was three days overdue, had thrown up yesterday morning, felt like she was going to again and this... emotional vulnerability wasn't like her at all. If she was pregnant, if their child had started to grow inside her... Oh God, if she was pregnant and he didn't come back...

Panic bit her, nausea surged with it. She muttered an apology to Sam and got out of there as fast as she could.

Sam stood up, sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Anyone know why she's taking this so badly?" He asked the room at large.

"She kinda likes Adam." Tash said, very sarcastically.

"That's not new. She's usually very controlled."

"Fascinating as this is, Sam," Chris interjected, "can we return to the officer who is possibly in very immediate danger. As I see it, there are six generic possibilities: Adam has either been killed, injured so he is immobile, captured, pinned down, his cell has been blown open and he's been forced to make away on foot or he has defected." Sam shook his head.

"He won't have defected. He wouldn't leave Fiona and he's far too loyal."

"If the cell had been blown open," Greg put in, "Fire-eye would have said the code-word. We'd know."

"That leaves pinned down, captured, injured or pushing up daisies." Tash surmised. "Lucky him."


	8. Chapter 8

Come home

**Again, a dark chapter. Be warned.**

10/5/98

The metal door of the room where Adam knelt, bound like Josif, creaked open. Adam heard the footfalls of maybe three men as sudden light blinded him, stabbing at his eyes. His throat was so dry he could barely speak. His knees and hips ached, his feet had no feeling left from uncounted hours kneeling. He had no idea when he'd last had anything to drink.

As Adam's sight began to return, a man knelt in front of him, not shouter, the one with a fluffy excuse for a beard, the smallest one. Fluff-face held a bottle of clear fluid before Adam's face. Adam's dry throat burned. But the fluid wasn't necessarily water. If it was white spirit, say, drinking it would probably cause as slow, agonising death. Fluff-face raised the bottle to his own mouth and drank three mouthfuls slowly, then opened his mouth to prove he'd swallowed it. OK, so not laced with anything horrible. What then? Was Fluff-face just tantalising him?

Apparently not. Fluff-face lifted the bottle to Adam's mouth. Adam hesitated, then began to drink. He didn't know when he'd get another chance.

It wasn't until Fluff-face pulled the bottle away, that Shouter spoke.

"I have given you what you want, Adam Carter, no?" Adam didn't reply. "So you will now give me what I want." Adam stayed silent. Shouter paced slowly. "Who are the other men that MI6 has here?" Adam didn't answer. Shouter sighed theatrically. "I suppose you know, Adam Carter, that if you disobey me, there will be consequences." Again, Adam didn't answer, didn't even look at Shouter. Shouter sighed again. He paced round to Adam's side.

Something cold and metallic dug itself in to Adam's neck, just below his jaw. He felt his breathing quicken, his heart beat harder. He knew what that was. He twisted away instinctively, but his hands were bound to the girder. He could only move so far. Shouter laughed coldly. Adam twisted his head, trying to look back at him, gage how real the threat was.

"You are a stubborn man, Adam Carter, but surely I do not need to explain this. If you tell me who and where the rest of your unit are, I will not shoot you. You would prefer that, yes?" Adam gritted his teeth, breathing much harder, as hard as he tried to show no emotion. "I am going to count down from five. You will not hear zero." Adam was gasping now, trying desperately to see the information he needed in Shouter's eyes. "Five. Four." Shouter was looking at the gun, not at him. "Three." So he was either qualmish, or bluffing. "Two." A man sent to interrogate an MI6 officer wouldn't be afraid to do his job.

"One."

"Damaedas!" Adam shouted.

"What" Shouter spat. "does that mean?"

"Damaedas." Adam repeated, breathing starting to slow, adrenaline starting to recede. "I call your bluff." He twisted round to look at Shouter directly, ignoring the gun. "If you'd been going to kill me, you wouldn't have given me water, why waste your time?" He began to pull himself back to a sitting position, however much it hurt. He had power right now, he wasn't going to let it go. "You know I know names, places, things you don't. I can't tell you anything with a bullet through my head. I'm useless to you dead. And you know it."

Shouter began to laugh. Adam stayed very still. Had he done it? Had he actually won against and armed maniac, while the prisoner of said armed maniac?

"Yes, Adam Carter. You are useless to me dead, as useless, in fact, as a scared little man who has already told me everything he knows." A split second before Shouter turned, Adam went cold. Shouter sprung like a leopard over to Josif and pushed him to the floor.

"No! Please? I gave you what you wanted! Please!" Shouter shouted over Josif's screams

"You know I have no reason to keep him alive, Adam Carter. Now we see how much MI6 cares for its assets, for those who stake their lives for it. I want names, Adam Carter, or Josif Mihaliovitch dies. Here and now, in front of you."

"Adam! Please!" Josif was crying now, staring at Adam with terrified eyes.

"You gain nothing by killing him. Either way, I won't talk."

"Five." Shouter bellowed across Josif's pleading. "Four." This wasn't a bluff. "Three." He didn't lose anything by killing Josif either. "Two." Josif started to scream; long, drawn screams of pure terror. "Time is running out." Adam looked down. It was Josif or half the unit. That wasn't a choice. "One." There was no choice. There was no choice.

A gunshot echoed round the room. Josif was silent. Adam closed his eyes. A rough hand grabbed his jaw.

"Look." Shouter's voice, close to. Disobeying would probably earn a fist in the face. Adam opened his eyes. Josif was still, not breathing, there was a neat, circular hole in the back of his head. Definitely dead. "You could have saved him, Adam Carter. You know that."

"With the lives of more." Adam answered coldly. "I won't try to buy myself a few more days of this with the life of anyone else." Shouter spat in to Adam's face.

"Everyone breaks, Adam Carter. The only question is how much I have to make you suffer before I get what I want." Shouter looked round at the other men. "Hans, bag. The rest of you, deal with that." He jerked his head at Josif's body. Adam offered no resistance as the bag was pulled over his head and the blows began to fall. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could have done to protect Josif, there was nothing he could do to protect himself. And it terrified him.


	9. Chapter 9

Come home

**.**

11/5/98

"Chris!" Greg shouted, running in to the centre of the room. "Chris! Sam! Fiona! Look!" Sam got there first. Fiona froze four feet away, Chris beside her, as Sam snatched a piece of paper from Greg's hand and read aloud.

"MI6, in order to protect our homeland, we have captured a man you sent to pry and destroy here. Also, a traitor to Serbia you were helping. Their names are Josif Mihaillovitch and Adam Carter." Sam looked up. Fiona breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's alive."

"Or we are supposed to think he is." Chris said. "Keep reading Sam."

"Though we could reasonably execute both men for crimes against Serbia, we are not barbarians. We will return both traitors to you alive if our demands are met. We demand the release of three courageous Serbian soldiers you are holding without trial: Nikola Karodzitch, Hans Radegan and Sasha Belgrad, also the removal of all English oppressors from Serbian regions. If these demands are not met, our prisoners will be executed." Sam lowered the paper again. There was a long silence.

"Those demands are insane, and he knows it." Sarah said quietly. Fiona nodded.

"So we play for time." Sam said quickly. "The more they communicate, the more likely we are to find them. We demand Proof of Life first, and specify that if we don't get it, they can forget any deal. They should play along with that."

"Unless Adam's already dead." Tash said. Fiona bit the inside of her mouth.

"We always demand proof of life. They'd have just sent us a body if they'd killed him." Sam nodded in agreement.

"Fiona's right. We proceed under the assumption that Adam's alive. Greg, start tracing this note. I want to know exactly where it came from. Tash, Sarah, find out who these men are, anything to tell us who's got Adam. Fiona, report upwards, find out what we could reasonably offer them to keep them talking." Everyone moved off at once.

Fiona was half way down the corridor, almost shaking with mixed relief and fear, when someone called her name behind her. She turned. Sam.

"Yes?" He hesitated just in front of her.

"Look, Fi, I know the last few days have been rough on you, and-" She shook her head at him.

"Oh, you've no idea, Sam."

"Look, I know it's not over yet, but at least we know he's alive, don't we?" Fiona nodded, feeling tightness in her throat again.

"They said `alive`, Sam, not `unharmed`. God knows what they'll do to him." Sam nodded and pulled her in to his arms. Fiona leant her head against him, but didn't return the hold. Her breathing shook, she was fighting tears. She was stronger than this. She had to be.

"It _is _possible." Sam said quietly. "But if they're trying to ransom Adam, they might not bother if they think we'll exchange him out before he breaks, they won't waste their time. They'd only have to hit him once or twice to figure out he's strong under torture. He'll be OK."


	10. Chapter 10

Come home

**Again, dark. If I carried this chapter on much longer, it would be an M.**

11/5/98

The silence was starting to get to Adam now. No one had come in since Josif... He didn't really want to think about that. How long had that been? A day? Two? He couldn't look at his bruises to tell. There wasn't enough light . No one had taken him out to a bathroom either. He'd been stripped to a T-shirt and boxers anyway, and they'd dried out quickly enough. He was past noticing the smell.

He was currently trying to remember the names of all the boys who'd played rugby with him when he'd been in upper sixth. He'd spent ages trying to remember the who the hooker had been, before realising it had been him. He was surprised he'd forgotten, given the teasing he'd endured for it, presumably like every hooker before and since. What was currently evading him was the name of the fly half. He couldn't remember for the life of him if it had been Robert Matthews or Matthew Roberts.

The door creaked open. Adam recoiled from the sudden light. Five shadows, talking amongst themselves. Someone else had turned up. A new interrogator? Bad.

"This is your last chance, Adam Carter." That was Shouter's voice. "Your last chance to talk without significant pain." Adam stared at him deadpan. That was just talk. Shouter sighed. "Brace his head, but leave his mouth." Something to hold his head still. This was about to get a lot more technical than generalised beating. It had dental torture written all over it. An ache started under Adam's molars. Hands grabbed his shoulder. He bit one of the wrists, hard. Its owner shouted a curse. A fist impacted the side of Adam's head. A face came in to his field of vision. Johnny. Johnny Delmare. Adam stared hard at him, he had to recognise him. There was nothing in Johnny's eyes. He was good at his job.

The brace itself was not intensely painful, but Adam's mouth was dry, he was cold with dread. Shouter stepped forwards, nodding to someone standing off to Adam's left. A red light started to blink in the dark. A camcorder. They were going to record this. The sick bastards, they were going to record this. Adam's chest was rising and falling rapidly. His palms were wet.

"One more chance, Adam Carter." Shouter growled, waving what looked like a DIY drill in front of Adam's face. "I think you know what I will do. I can see that you are afraid. All you have to do is give me names. I will give you food, water, let you move around, wash yourself. But you must give me names. If you do not, you will suffer so much." Adam stayed silent, eyes stinging, mouth dry, gasping for air through gritted teeth, knowing what it would cost him. Shouter sighed. "Bind his mouth."


	11. Chapter 11

Come home

**I warned of angst.**

12/5/98

"Enough! Turn it off!" Sam shouted at Greg, who complied at once. Fiona dropped her head in to her hands. Her breath was shaking. The images played out before her as if someone had pasted them on to her hands. Adam's screams rang in her ears. Oh God, his screams. Two years ago, Adam had taken a bullet in the leg. He hadn't screamed then. He'd yelled once on the way down, then lain hissing for a few minutes. But he hadn't screamed. Really screamed, not like that. Oh God, how much pain must he have been in, and how terrified before? He must have known what they were going to do. "That's proof of life." Sam said determinedly. "That is definitive proof that Adam is alive. None of us needs to see any more of that. Ever." Sam sounded as if he were on his feet, breathing hard. Fiona felt a hand on her shoulder, probably Sarah. She wouldn't open her eyes. She was going to wake up from this. It was wrong, it was so wrong. It was a horrible dream. She was going to wake up soon, with Adam beside her, warm, strong, whole.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." Chris said softly. "All of you. But, Sam, I'm also sorry that you're wrong. The proof of life is only ever a trawl for information. That tape needs to be torn apart for faces, voices, any identification at all. We also need to estimate how close Adam is to breaking. If he does, all his assets are in danger. You all know how much he knows."

"Adam'd never betray us." Sarah cut in.

"It's easy to say that from safety." Chris said. "You saw what Adam was being put through."

"Never heard Adam yell." Tash mumbled.

"I appreciate that it isn't easy to watch a fellow officer suffer," Chris started, "but it has to be done."

"Count me out." Sam cut him off. "That's not a fellow officer suffering, Chris, that's my best mate being tortured. Are you really going to make me sit through it? Fiona?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second." Chris replied calmly. Fiona breathed a silent sigh of relief. She couldn't have done that. "She and Greg haven't been to Serbia, the rest of you have."

"Chris, I can't do that." Tash said.

"Me neither." Sarah added. Chris sighed.

"I appreciate that this is difficult, but we are not doing this for our own sakes. What we will feel watching is a fragment of what Adam has had to endure. Will all of you please remember that? We are trying to find him and bring him home before he has to stand very much worse. Will you all please keep sight of that? Greg, prep equipment for analysis of the film itself. Fiona, draft a response expressing our indignation at the treatment of our officer and asking where the hell Josif Mihaillovitch is. We'll take that out if we see him somewhere in this mess. One of you, pull the plug on the speakers on your way out." Fiona got unsteadily to her feet, only too glad to be out. Greg pulled the plug on the speakers.

"Chris," Sam started tentatively. "can we have a minute before..."

"You may."

Everyone else caught up with Fiona and Greg just outside. Tash walked up to the nearest wall and pressed her forehead against it, swearing fluently. Sarah pulled Fiona in to her arms. Fiona collapsed against her, body shaking with tears.

"He's alive, Fi. Where there's life, there's hope. He is alive." Fiona nodded once. Sam sighed heavily somewhere nearby. Tash's swearing had stopped.

"You don't sign up for this." She said.

"No." Sam replied quietly. "You don't." Fiona bit her lip in attempt to halt her own tears. "But it has to be done. Chris is right. I'm not doing a very good job, am I? I'm section head. I'm meant to be holding the rest of you together. Here I am falling apart."

"Come here." Sarah lifted one arm from Fiona, beckoning Sam. Fiona felt Sam's body against hers and Sarah's. He was shaking slightly too, not as much as she was, but still.

"I feel left out now." Tash wriggled under Sam's arm, in to the space between him and Fiona.

"Since when do we do this?" Sam asked.

"Since now." Sarah said firmly. "Joining us Greg?"

"No." Greg said, just as firmly. "I have work to do, and God knows we need Adam if this is what we degenerate in to in his absence." One of Tash's shoes flew at Greg, who dodged it. "As I was saying." He retreated quickly. Sam drew back, eyes down.

"If it has to be done." Sarah nodded, releasing Fiona and Tash.

"Yeah." Tash shook her head.

"I'm not gonna sleep tonight." Fiona privately agreed. She hadn't slept much since Friday, since Adam had gone missing. She'd guessed that he wasn't being well treated by his captors, spooks never were, but to see him being tortured like that...

"None of us are." Sam said softly. "And we won't until Adam's home."


	12. Chapter 12

Come home

**Minor gore and bad language. Be warned.**

**Sorry it took so long. It's a long chapter and it's been a busy week.  
**

12/5/98

Adam coughed. Dark, half-clotted blood sprayed from his mouth. The wound on the inside of his jawbone didn't seem to have stopped bleeding, though a lot of time must have passed since it had been inflicted. From what he'd dared feel with his tongue, it was very deep, and proportionally painful. He'd felt the edge of bone in it. Blood pooled continually around his tongue. He'd swallowed some, it was inevitable, but he was trying to spit it out. Doing either hurt, a lot, but swallowing lots of raw blood could give him gastroenteritis, which he really didn't need.

He felt as if he wasn't really connected to his body past the waist any more, which at least meant his legs didn't hurt. That and his banging headache made Adam suspect that he was very dehydrated and had lost a lot more blood than he could really afford.

"Well, well, well Adam." Adam twisted sharply, sending pain racing through his wounds again, and stared, disbelieving. "You've got yourself in to a bit of a mess, haven't you, lad?"

"Richard." Adam breathed. The man who'd recruited him, and Johnny, and Sam before them. The first man they'd spied for, their trainer. This couldn't be real. "You're dead."

"Yes." Richard replied, crouching down in front of Adam. "I am. You remember how?" Adam spat blood, then nodded.

"Mercenary sniper, at the top of a skyscraper, Buenos Aires, July 17th, 1992. You can't be here."

"No lad. As you said, I'm dead."

"Then-"

"Oh, come on, Adam. You're intelligent and more or less compus mentis. Work it out." Adam thought for a minute or two.

"If you're dead, and I'm talking to you, have I-"

"Don't be ridiculous, Adam. You're alive. Try again." Adam rethought his assumptions, and tried again.

"If I'm alive, and you're not, and we're talking, you're not real, I'm hallucinating."

"Well, we got there in the end." Adam started to smile, but it hurt.

"It's been a long time since anyone said that to me."

"It needed saying then." Another brief silence. Adam spat again.

"You said I was compus mentis. I'm talking to a man who's been dead for six years."

"I said that you were more or less compus mentis Adam, not that you were."

"Are you going to be as pedantic as you were when you were alive?"

"I am as you remember me, being a construct of your subconscious." Adam sighed.

"I'm going to die here, aren't I?" He said, after a moment. Richard nodded.

"Probably." Adam closed his eyes and dropped his head. His mouth drained a little.

"I've got a wife now, you know. Spooks can't do that, but we did it anyway. And right before I came here, she told me she thought she was pregnant." Adam blinked hard. "I suppose she'll know by now. Oh, Christ, I can't leave her like this. I can't-"

"That's enough. There's no can or can't anymore for you. If they intend to kill you, they will. If they don't, they won't. It's out of your hands, Adam. Get it together please." Adam made an attempt to bite his lip, but the pain in his jaw stopped him. He closed his mouth gently, even if it meant swallowing blood, and breathed hard through his nose.

"Better?" Richard asked after a minute. Adam emptied his mouth of blood and nodded. "Good. As I was saying, Adam, you have no control over whether you live or die. You do, however have control over how you die."

"Be shot or bleed out I expect." Adam felt surprised by his own sudden calm. Richard smiled.

"I meant the way you face death. The young one, Josif." Adam nodded. "He let fear take hold. He died terrified and begging for life. Are you going to die like that?" It was a rhetorical question, but Adam answered anyway.

"No." Richard nodded.

"Good man. I'll tell you how you are going to die. You are going to die with your head held high, staring straight at the person who is about to kill you, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service. How are you going to die?" Adam drew breath slowly.

"With my head held high, staring straight at whoever's about to kill me, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"Again."

"With my head held high, staring straight at whoever's about to kill me, with pride and dignity-" The door creaked open. "as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"Who are you talking to, Adam Carter?" Shouter's voice. Adam hesitated, then decided on the truth.

"Richard Smythe." He spat blood again and saw, to his surprise, that Fluff-face and the one with the stupid-looking moustache were peering anxiously in to the gloom.

"There is no one here, Adam Carter. You are alone since you killed Josif Mihaillovitch." Adam offered no response. It wasn't worth the pain of speaking. Shouter crouched down in front of him, a bottle of water in his hand. Adam's throat burned. It had been days since he'd had water, and Shouter knew it. Shouter opened the bottle, took two mouthfuls and opened his mouth, like Fluff-face had, to prove he'd swallowed it. Adam just stared.

"You want this?" Shouter waved the bottle under Adam's nose. This was a form of torture, not an offer of help, and he had to remember it, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service. "Names, Adam Carter. That is all that stands between you and relief." Adam stared stonily at him. "I can see that you are a very proud man, but pride will hurt you in the end. It is hurting you now, yes?" Still Adam didn't respond. Shouter spoke for maybe two more minutes. Adam was sorely tempted to spit blood in to his face to shut him up, but physical torture would probably result.

Then Shouter sighed and motioned Fluff-face and Stupid-moustache forward. Cold dread knotted Adam's stomach. With pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Fluff face grabbed a handful of Adam's hair and pulled his hair back. Oh shit, not this again. Not this. Stupid-moustache grabbed Adam's jaw. Adam bellowed in pain. Stupid-moustache took the opportunity to get two fingers over Adam's front teeth, in an attempt to hold his jaw open. Adam bit hard, heedless of how much worse it made his jaw feel. If it saved him another drill wound, he didn't care. Stupid-Moustache yelled and wrenched his hand free, staring at the blood that coated it. Shouter roared something at Fluff-face, who pulled Adam's head back further. The girder kept Adam from arching his back further to compensate. Shouter kicked Adam in the side. He cried out. He couldn't help it. Shouter pressed Adam's cheeks inwards, until they were between his teeth

Adam couldn't close his mouth. He'd lost. But there was no sign of a drill, or a head brace. Surely in the mania of that kind of pain he'd break lose. Adam eyed Shouter uncertainly, as he shouted orders at Stupid-Moustache. What was he doing?

Stupid-Moustache reappeared in Adam's field of view and dropped two pills in to Adam's mouth. Drugs. Very bad. Before Adam could try to spit them out, a load of water landed on top of them. He coughed violently. Bloody water splashed over his face. His jaw seared anew. Shouter pinched his nose.

"Swallow it or suffocate, Adam Carter." One of the pills was under his tongue, on the uninjured side of his mouth. The other was too far back to reach. Adam's head was starting to spin. He coughed again, coughed until he had no air left in his lungs to expel. He swallowed. More water before he could breathe in. He swallowed again.

Twice more, he had to swallow. One tablet felt like it had gone down. He spat the other out the instant Fluff-face let go of his head. Shouter looked, then said.

"One should be enough, Adam Carter, but you could have made that much easier for yourself." What the hell had he just swallowed? Hallucinogenic? Most likely. Oh shit. He might break and not even know that he had. He couldn't trust anything he saw or heard for the next – no, they could damage his time perception. When would this end?

No. Don't ask when, or if, ask how. With his head held high, with pride and dignity, as an officer of Her Majesty's Secret Service.

"You are a married man, yes?" Adam offered no response. Shouter sighed. "We saw the mark on your left hand from wearing a ring." Adam still didn't answer. What was it to Shouter? "She is a beautiful creature, no?" Yes, but how would Shouter know?"

"You'll never find her." Adam said, his voice hoarse. Shouter laughed mirthlessly.

"Truth be told, Adam Carter, she found us. She came looking for us and... fell in to the wrong hands. But I think all she knows, you do too, so it may be that I only need to keep one of you, assuming that you tell me what I wish to know." Fiona'd been caught? How had they known she was his wife? Had they tortured it out of her? Adam winced at the thought. Fiona, hooded and beaten until she could barely move, the head brace, what came with it... If she ever had to go through torture because of him again... "If you do not tell me what I wish to know, I will have her brought here, interrogate you together. If you love her, the sound of her screams may hurt you more than beating." Shouter fell silent, waiting for Adam to reply. As much as the idea of Fiona enduring this scared him, he didn't. Shouter sighed. "And of course, my men are bored. They cannot go home to their wives, maybe the company of yours will keep them amused." A sadistic grin crossed Stupid-Moustache's face. Adam looked down, breathing hard, eyes closed, blood dripping from his mouth. That would break him. If they did that in front of him, he'd break. And he'd just told Shouter that he would by reacting. Adam stayed silent again. He didn't need to give Shouter any more leverage than he already had. Shouter sighed again.

"Such a shame to see a beautiful, delicate, mild creature like that broken by ill use, but if it must be, it must be." Something in Adam's dazed, exhausted brain clicked. `Delicate and mild`, he'd called her. Shouter's english was near enough perfect, so it wasn't likely to be a malapropism. Anyone who'd seen Fiona when she felt threatened would think twice about calling her delicate. She was a ruthlessly effective fighter and able to take a lot more pain than you'd guess. Mild was even further wrong. These men would have seen nothing mild about Fiona. She'd have given them one hell of a fight.

"Bullshit." Adam said quietly, relief colouring his voice.

"What?"

"Damaedas, same thing. You don't have her. You don't even know who she is. You will never find her." Shouter growled in his throat and kicked Adam.

"Get me the bag and something to beat him with." Fluff-face hurried out. Adam didn't really care. He'd been right, Shouter's reaction proved it. Fiona was safe.


	13. Chapter 13

Come home

**No gore, just angst.**

14/5/98

"So, if their drops so far have been there, there and there," Greg said, marking red dots on the map on the table, "and ours were here and here, they, and consequently Adam, are probably somewhere in this area." Greg began to draw out a shape on the map between the dots with a pair of compasses."

"That's only two square miles." Sarah said. "That's almost searchable."

"Not on foreign soil." Sam reminded her. "We can't start setting up road blocks, and as soon as they know we're close, they'll bolt and leave Adam's body behind." Fiona bit the inside of her mouth.

"Add another point to the map, Greg." Chris walked in, brandishing an envelope. Fiona almost jumped upright. She wasn't the only one. "Found here." Chris tapped the map. "And we're to reply here." He tapped a different place, dropping the envelope. Fiona, Sam and Sarah snatched at it. Sam was nearest, so pulled out the folded piece of paper and read.

"Josif Mihaillovitch has been executed as a traitor to his people. We are being remarkably lenient towards Adam Carter considering the crimes he has committed against Serbia. Do not doubt that we will punish him adequately if our demands are not met. Also, we suggest that you do not continue to waste our time. Tomorrow, this dog will be set on the oppressor." Sam turned the paper over. "Which dog?" Tash picked up the discarded envelope.

"This dog." She threw a photo on to the table. Everyone looked. The dog had been jumping at the camera when the photo had been taken, teeth bared, eyes wild and rolling. "Looks rabid."

"Any dog will look like that if you bait it." Chris said calmly. "A rather useless piece of paraphernalia, intended to scare us, if you ask me." Fiona privately felt that it was doing its job. The dog's head and neck were muscular, its teeth curved long and curved like scimitars. What those jaws could do to living flesh, a human body, Adam's body, didn't bear thinking about.

"You're OK Fi." Sarah seemed to read her mind. Fiona nodded, jaw set, Adam's screams reverberating in her ears again.

"Chris, this isn't useless." Sam said softly. Fiona looked at him. There was a glaze to his eyes, a glaze that usually meant he was thinking very hard. What had he seen? What had he seen that the rest of them had missed? What had he seen that could lead them to Adam? Fiona watched him with bated breath. "Greg, how much smaller do the two new points make our area?"

"Ten-fifteen percent?"

"Mile and a half area." Sam seemed to be talking half to himself. "Not searchable, not on foreign soil, but..." He looked up suddenly. "In a mile and a half of residential area, how many dogs like that can there possibly be?"

"It's a fighting dog, Sam." TAsh said incredulously. "That's a rough area, there'll be loads of 'em." Sam shook his head.

"Brindle coat, white throat, chest and paws except right fore. I think that's a man's shoe behind it, so it's not more than... what? 25 inches in the shoulder? And not much longer than it is tall. Left ear missing, right ear tatty, scars all over the left side of its neck. How many dogs like that could there possibly be in that area?"

"It's not a pet, it's not going to be taken for walks, Sam." Chris said.

"No, but..." Sam ran a hand through his hair. "It's a residential area. The houses are all quite small. The job doesn't feel like part of a big, well-funded operation. The drill they were using..." Sam tailed off. "It looked like a drill anyone could buy from a hardware shop. They're probably not keeping the dog on site, so to set it on Adam, they've got to either move Adam, which is a huge risk or-"

"Move the dog." Fiona finished. "It will have to be out in the open, even if it's just for a few minutes."

"How many eyes can we get there?" Sam asked.

"Ten assets at a push, five of our own stationed out there." Chris said slowly.

"And a couple of us?" Sam suggested.

"I'll go." Fiona offered, before anyone else could.

"No, Fiona, I-"

"For God's sake Chris!" She shouted. "I'm not some nineteenth century officer's wife who'll just wait at home indefinitely, not knowing a thing while her husband went off in to danger, until somebody deigned to tell her he was captured or dead! You know I'm competent, let me help!" There was a very long silence.

"Fiona, please be rational. You've never been to Serbia, you can barely string a sentence together in Serbian. I'm sending Sarah and Tash. Not Sam, his cover's blown. Even if you knew the area, I wouldn't send you. I don't know if it's just concern for Adam, but you've been emotionally unstable and I consider your judgement to be impaired. You're emotionally compromised. You must realise that."

"Oh, give her a break, Chris." Sarah snapped. "She's pregnant, God knows she's got a reason to be emotionally compromised." Fiona bowed her head. There was a very long silence.

"Fiona?" Chris asked. "Is this true?"

"Unconfirmed." She replied coldly. "And the rules say it's mine and Adam's business up to eight weeks. If I am, I'm barely five weeks."

"And you've wondered all the time..." Sam started. "Fiona, I'm so sorry."

"It's in no way your fault Sam. I'll see if I can get flights for Sarah and Tash." She needed to get out. She needed space to breathe. No one challenged her.

She had no idea why she felt so go at, why it bothered her so much that everyone knew she was pregnant, or knew she might be. But she felt different somehow, the vomiting hadn't stopped, she was a full week overdue... She hated that Adam would be the last to know, assuming he survived long enough, assuming she ever saw him alive again- It felt like being watched in a cage, with nowhere to hide. Hormones? Fear for Adam exploding anywhere it could?

They had a lead now. Sam's idea might well work. Adam could be home in 24 hours. She had to keep her eyes on that.


	14. Chapter 14

Come home

**I apologise for the legibility of the speech in this chapter. I feel it to be justified.**

15/5/98

Adam lay on his side on the floor. They hadn't bothered to tie him to the girder this time, just left him cuffed on the floor. They probably thought he didn't have it in him to run. They were right. He doubted his right leg would take any weight, the bites in it weren't many, two that he'd been aware of, but they were deep. Blood loss from his mouth over the past few days, or however long, and now his bite wounds, was defeating him. He could feel blood from his left bicep flowing slowly down across his chest, clotting round the hair there. Blackness closed in on him.

He woke next in almost total darkness. And cold, so cold. He could feel the stiffness of dried blood all over him. The image of the dog, white fur on its neck already matting red with blood, his blood, teeth bared, eyes wild, lunging at him again, hung in the dark before him. He could well die in this stretch of time, before anyone came in here again. It seemed odd, to die here, after what he'd survived in Syria. But he couldn't have long left, surely he couldn't survive like this, bleeding, no food, no water, for long. He made no attempt to fight the blackness as it rose up again.

He was colder still when he woke again. He'd never had hypothermia, but he had to be close now. He closed his eyes. His breathing was fast and shallow now. There was light ahead of him. He was standing, looking in to it. Laughter, a wide open space. A child ran over the grass, laughing to itself for the whole world to hear, arms spread wide. It ran almost headlong in to Fiona, who was kneeling on the ground. Her laughter joined the child's as she held it close, stroking the back of its head. The pair of them drew apart. Fiona looked up at Adam, one hand still on the child's back, and set the child running again, this time towards Adam. It called out to him as it ran. The word echoed in his head, as if the child had said it several times, each word starting before the last had ended.

"Da-Da-dy-dy" The child stopped in front of him. He crouched down to take its hand. Its skin was soft and warm, but as soon as he touched it, the child turned and ran back in to Fiona's arms, laughing again.

Somewhere, on a cold, blood-soaked floor, prickling heat rose behind someone's eyes.

Fiona held the child, until it almost seemed to become one with her, until Adam couldn't see where she ended and it began.

On the cold, blood-soaked floor, someone began to cry, alone in the dark. He'd never make it home, never see his wife again, never hold her in his arms, never tell her he loved her, never know if she was pregnant, never see their child. But he hadn't broken. He could be proud of that. He hadn't told them anything. And it would be over soon, surely it would be.

Fiona got to her feet, the child's body seemed to have merged with hers. She turned to face Adam, the open field faded around her. Her figure was different. There was a bulge between her ribcage and her hips. She was pregnant, heavily pregnant. The laughter was gone from her face, she looked grave, scared.

"Ad-Ad-am-am." Her voice echoed like the child's had. She was walking towards him. "Ad-Ad-am-am." There was an urgency to her voice. "Ad-Adam, loo-look at me-tme." She crouched down beside him on the cold, blood-soaked floor. "Ad-ad-am-am." Her voice had dropped to a frantic whisper. "Ad-Adam, do-don't give up-veup. No-Not now-ow." She laid her hands on his neck. They were warm. They were warm and he was so cold. "Ad-Adam, li-listen to me-tme. We-We're coming for you-ou. Ju-Just hold on-ldon" He didn't respond. She gave him a look of complete desperation. "Fo-For God's sake Adam-am. I-I need you-ou, we-we need you-ou." She laid a hand on her abdomen, making her meaning clear. "The-They're coming Adam-am. Ho-Hold on." She was too late. The blackness was closing again. "Ad-Adam, stay with me-thme. Ad-Adam-am." Adam slipped away.


	15. Chapter 15

Come home

**The next chapter is exceedingly long, so will probably be a while coming. **

15/5/98

Martin Coomes looked down at his watch. Ten to midnight. They'd made good time. He glanced over the team in the back of the van with him; The four combat officers he spent half his life with, and Sarah Cole, a girl from HQ. Everyone except her was carrying a silenced M5 assault rifle, she had a pistol. Martin sighed.

"OK everyone, speed is of the essence here. Keep to your pairs, go room by room, thoroughly, ho heroics. Nile and Sarah, on our six. If one of us goes down, radio code is..."

"Osprey." The men chorused.

"Then Nile takes their place. Sarah, you stay put unless two of us go down, or specifically ordered otherwise. There should be one of our guys in there, alive, so..."

"Don't shoot to kill unless it has a weapon." They chorused. Martin sighed again.

"We need to be ready for this one boys. These guys sent HQ a tape of our guy being tortured, didn't they?" He glanced at Sarah, who nodded grimly. "Just... be ready for the fact that what we find in there isn't going to be pretty. Don't let them beg. These guys don't deserve any mercy." The men nodded grimly again. "Ned, with me. Oscar, with Ben. Nile, Sarah, on our six. Go."

They burst from the van, running in a column, to cover each other, sprinting for the door of the house. Martin and Ben each fired a few rounds in to the lock on the door. Raised the alarm, but gave less warning than using a ram on a door this weak. The windows were boarded. Ben dropped back, letting Oscar charge the door. The door caved in, splintering between the bullet holes as the huge Scotsman threw his weight against it and dropped to a roll, trusting everyone else to cover him.

A lone man stepped from a doorway on the left, shouting, drawing a pistol. Martin's right index finger curled. Three of his rounds hammered in to the hostile's chest. He fell silent and crumpled. Martin hadn't been the only one who'd shot him. Someone had got him through the eye, so definitely dead. He was young, eighteen? Nineteen? He looked like he'd been trying to grow a beard.

Martin pushed his pity aside and pushed in to the room the hostile had come from, feeling Ned at his side.

The room was empty. Another pistol was lying on the floor. No bodies, no other people. Martin tapped Ned on the shoulder and turned to leave.

Next room on their side. Much smaller, no live people, but the room stank of death. There'd been a body in here. Hopefully not Adam Carter's.

They turned back to the corridor. As he crossed the threshold, a bullet hummed past Martin and embedded itself in the doorframe. Martin leapt back in to the room for cover, looking around. There. At the top of the stairs. One man, bare-footed, bare-chested. He must have been asleep. But he still had a gun, and he'd moved so that, in order to shoot at him, Martin would have to leave his cover, and probably be shot trying. He had Kevlar, but at this kind of range, it wasn't much good. Nile and Sarah were in the same situation, but the hostile hadn't counted on Oscar and Ben.

Martin heard five shots as the hostile fell, tumbling down the stairs, long, tapering moustache flopping almost comically, two small circular holes in his forehead.

Up or down? The stairs led in two directions. Martin motioned Sarah and Nile forwards, listening. A thump from below, nothing from above. If there were hostiles above, they'd be more likely to escape than those below.

Martin decided. He motioned Nile and Sarah to stay and Oscar and Ben to go up, then led Ned down.

The stench of blood was everywhere, and urine. The torches on their guns provided the only light. This place made the hair on the back of Martin's neck stand up. Two doors, one on the right, one on the left. Martin motioned Ned right, both doors looked firmly closed, but attack from behind was very possible. Less so if they were quick. He shouldered the door, Ned covering his side. A few iron girders stood like sentinels. They could be cover for hostiles. The smell was almost overwhelming in here. Blood had pooled on the floor in a few places, congealed there. Ned advanced, checking the girders. Martin put a wall at his back. It barely made him any less uneasy.

Ned came back, shrugging. Martin nodded. The pair of them went for the other door. Ned paused just outside it. Breathing. They looked at each other. Martin nodded.

They kicked the door open.

"Freeze!" A man's voice bellowed from the right. Martin turned, Ned at his back. Two men, one holding the other upright, with obvious effort. The man behind had dark hair, his back to a wall, and a gun pressed in to the other's neck. The man in front was barely conscious, eyes dull, breathing laboured, covered in blood. "If you move, I will kill this man." Martin hesitated. He didn't doubt that the dark haired man would kill the other as a last move, the key would be to distract him.

"Who is he?"

"He is Adam Carter. The one you came for, yes?"

"His heart's stopped." Martin said, flicking his torch away from the hostage's face. "His pupil reflex is gone." Whether the hostile meant to or not, he glanced across at his hostage, so he didn't see Ned fire. One bullet to the temple, that was all it took. Both men crumpled to the floor.

Ned darted forwards, right hand going straight to the hostage's neck.

"Still alive." He said, after a moment, rolling the hostage in to the Recovery Position.

"Foxtrot leader, this is foxtrot two." Martin's radio cracked in to life. "We are clear above. Repeat: clear above."

"Copy." Martin replied. "Foxtrot two, take foxtrot three's position. Miss Cole, get down here. We need you to ID someone."


	16. Chapter 16

Come home

**I knew this would be long, but not quite this long.**

16/5/98

"Sorry, we have no visitors listed under your name." The nurse at the desk said coldly. "We enforce this to get rid of journalists. I'm sure you understand." An unspoken `or else` hung in the air. Fiona took her fake ID back, wondering.

She'd been called at home by Sarah at half past five that morning. Sarah had said that Adam was back in the country and being taken to Truro. The name of the place wasn't spoken in the service. The place torture victims went to cower and die.

"Sarah, tell me honestly, how bad?" Sarah's sigh had scared Fiona all the more.

"I'm not a medic, Fiona. I don't know. It's fluid-drip-and-a-lot-of-morphine level, but he hasn't been in to cardiac arrest or anything." That only meant that Adam wasn't on the cusp of death.

"Conscious?"

"Probably something to do with the morphine, but no."

Fiona and Sam, who'd called when Fiona was half-way dressed to go to Truro, and insisted that they go together, as Sam had to go anyway, he was Adam's section head, had driven half the length of the M4, a lot of M5 and two hours of A and B roads, as fast as they'd dared, in two hour shifts. They'd been stuck for what had felt like an age in the Bristol rush hour, made it in five and a half hours and now she was being stalled by a bored duty nurse. She'd brought fake ID to avoid the hostility with which spooks were treated here, also the reason Sam was waiting in the car until she was in, so they weren't tarred with the same brush. She sighed and drew out her fake ID.

The nurse looked at it resentfully.

"Which patient would you be looking to see?" She said to her computer screen.

"Adam Carter."

"Admitted?"

"Today."

"Permission given by?"

"You don't need permission if it's your section's jurisdiction."

"Your section is?"

"Lambda."

"So...L?"

"Five use English alphabet, six use Greek." The nurse typed in the details slowly.

"Was it you then?"

"What?"

"Was it you that tortured him?" Fiona felt herself whiten.

"How dare you?" She breathed. "How dare you make an accusation like that? You have no idea what happened. Where is he?" The nurse looked dispassionately back at her.

"Through there, second left, first right, fifth left on that right. There's CCTV in there. We will have you if you lay a finger on him." Fiona turned on her heel and walked out, feeling tears sting her eyes. She wanted to scream at that bitch, who thought she knew it all, thought Fiona'd tortured Adam. Tortured Adam. The thought stung her like a lash and she broke in to a run. She had to get to him. That was all that mattered right now.

Doors flickered past her on the left, two, three, four, five. She stopped and threw her weight against the door. It opened. She froze on the threshold.

Adam. It was Adam, but oh God. He was unconscious, a tube in his nose hooked up to something under the bed, attached to a vitals monitor. Fiona didn't know much about medicine, but she knew that, for someone unconscious, a blood pressure of 74 over 65 was not normal, neither was a heart rate of 86. His face was swollen, worse on the left, lip split, the eye reduced to a slit, closed anyway. Like the rest of his skin that was visible, it was mottled with bruises, from half-healed green to black. There was a drip in his right hand, she had no way of knowing what. The upper half of his left arm was completely obscured by bandages, but even through them, it looked wrong. There was usually an attractive outward curve of muscle on Adam's upper arms, now his left arm looked flat, almost concave. That couldn't just be atrophy. Not in six days. What had they done to him?

Fiona padded forwards noiselessly, as though drawn by a magnet. She was afraid to look closer, afraid of what she'd see, but she had to be close to him. She reached for his left hand and held it in both of hers.

"Adam." She breathed. "Adam, it's alright now. You're home. You're safe. It's OK." He didn't even stir. She hadn't really expected him to, but tears stung her eyes. She blinked hard. "It's all over. You're safe. It's all over."

A tap on the door. Fiona started. A woman, maybe four or five years her junior stood in the doorway. Cornflower blue top, white trim, so a staff nurse, light blonde hair tied back, no makeup, nowhere she could feasibly be carrying a gun, hands full of bandages. All this passed through Fiona's mind in the time it took for the woman to smile and draw breath to say,

"Where did you come from?" Northern accent, probably Yorkshire. Fiona could think of five ways to answer that question, not all of them truthful. Before she'd decided, the nurse changed her question. "Can I see some ID please? Only we were told he wouldn't have civilian visitors." Fiona drew out her real ID resignedly. And so it started again. This woman could be as hostile as she liked, Fiona wasn't going anywhere.

"Yes, I am a bloody spook." The woman looked briefly at the ID card and raised her hands, still full of bandages.

"Someone jumped down your throat?" She asked. Fiona didn't reply. "I won't. It's not my place to judge, and so far as I can see, you're less happy to see him like this than most of the staff."

Something inside Fiona snapped. She curled forwards where she stood, breathing breaking down in to shaking sobs, she wasn't even sure why. The nurse put the bandages down and put her arms around Fiona, who leant against her without ever deciding to.

"I know." The nurse said quietly. "I know, it's always hard. It's alright. He'll be alright."

It took Fiona maybe a minute to pull herself together enough to draw back from the nurse and apologise embarrassedly. The nurse smiled.

"It happens. You're not the first person in here who's needed a shoulder to cry on, and I doubt you'll be the last. It's alright." Fiona didn't have an answer to that, so the nurse asked another question.

"What's he to you? I'm guessing you don't just work together." Fiona hesitated.

"No. He's my husband." The woman nodded once.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Fiona said shortly. She didn't really want the sympathy of a stranger. "How bad is it?" She asked after a moments silence, her voice as emotionless as she could make it.

"Let's have a look" The nurse turned to the foot of the bed and picked up the clipboard which hung from it. She turned to the back page. "Condition on admission:" Fiona looked over the nurse's shoulder to read, but the page was written in some sort of shorthand she couldn't read, in awful handwriting. "Unconscious, very dehydrated, low blood volume from bleeding. Multiple bite wounds, possibly by a dog, on right leg. Serious bite wound on left upper arm. Tissue missing. Left lower jawbone damaged, still has partial stability, whatever that's supposed to mean. If it were cracked, it would say so."

"They drilled a hole in it." Fiona said quietly. The nurse stared at her.

"How-"

"They sent us a tape." She explained, pain choking her voice. "They tortured him and sent us a video of it, and a photo of the dog they were going to set on him." The horror on the nurse's face was a shadow of what Fiona had felt.

"That's just sick." Fiona nodded.

"Yes, it is. Is that all they found?" The nurse seemed to shake herself and looked back at the paper.

"Sorry. Extensive bruising and grazes, hard to spot internal injuries. Ribs seem to be intact, so his lungs and heart should be too."

"Prognosis?" The nurse hesitated.

"I'm not a doctor, I'm not supposed to comment, but he's survived this far, and his blood pressure has improved, and I can't see anything here that's likely to kill him outright. What have they done so far?" The nurse turned the page. "Nothing very unusual, Rabies antiserum just in case, a lot of antibiotics, stitches, considering grafting his arm, debrided the wounds, which explains why the dressings need checking so soon. Debriding tends to make them bleed a bit."

"Can I help?" Fiona asked. The nurse hesitated again.

"OK. Go and wash your hands." She nodded at the sink in the corner. Fiona obliged, knowing it would steady her to do something useful.

"You don't have a name tag." She observed, over the sound of the tap. "but you've seen mine."

"Fiona, wasn't it?" The nurse asked. "I'm Tia, well, Hestia really. I've never quite forgiven my mother for that." Fiona smiled in spite of herself, turning back to her, hands wet.

"Where's the name from? It sounds... Latin?"

"Ancient Greek." Tia replied, offering Fiona a paper towel. "My parents' passion was Greek mythology, and none of my sisters are happy about it." Tia turned back the bedclothes, exposing Adam's right leg. What wasn't bandaged was dappled with bruises. "Can you hold his leg like that?" She demonstrated. Fiona took over. Adam felt reassuringly warm, but what might be under the bandages worried her. Tia had picked up a pair of scissors.

"How many sisters?" Fiona asked to distract herself.

"Three." Tia started to part the top layer of bandage from what was underneath. "Four, counting me. Athena, eldest, goes by Thena, which isn't much better, Hera can't do anything with hers, then me, then Demeter, uses Demi." The outer layer of bandage fell away. The layer beneath was still pristine white. "OK, that's fine." Tia started to re-do the outer layer with a fresh bandage. "How about you, any siblings?" Fiona shook her head.

"Adam's the only one I... rely on really." She couldn't bring herself to say `love`. Tia nodded.

"It must have been horrible to know this was going on." Fiona didn't want to go in to that, so stayed silent. "How long was he gone?"

"He went missing a week ago." Tia fastened the bandage.

"OK, can you hold his other arm..." She walked round to the other side of Adam's bed. "like this." She held his upper arm at both joints, slightly off the bed. Fiona nodded and took over. Tia began to cut the outer bandage away. Fiona saw it before her, a spot of blood, the size of a five pence piece, on the next layer of bandage.

"Poor thing." Tia murmured when she saw it, then added, "you don't have to watch this. I can do it on my own if you'd rather not see."

"I'm fine." Fiona replied firmly, as much to herself as to Tia. Tia nodded and began to remove the rest of the bandage. Every turn, the spot grew bigger, darker red, until it was almost four inches long, and two wide. The dressing pad was saturated. Tia lifted it away. Fiona stifled a gasp. It looked as if a section of Adam's arm had been torn out, skin, muscle beneath... The wound was a livid red, covered in blood. It didn't seem to be bleeding from any one place, but from everywhere at once.

Tia set about the dressing quickly, muttering about bad dressing pads. Fiona looked away. That would take a very long time to heal, if it ever did. Adam almost always seemed so indomitable. Nothing phased him, he barely seemed to register most pain. Seeing him like this again, so weakened, so broken... It was hard, very hard.

As soon as Tia finished the bandage, Fiona felt her stomach clench, her throat tighten. Saliva began to pool under her tongue. Shit. It was late in the day for this, and she'd emptied her stomach already this morning. She looked about, she had no idea where a toilet was. Tia was ahead of her. She reached under Adam's bed and pulled out a lidded bucket. Fiona knelt and heaved. Mercifully, she hadn't much in her stomach, and she was almost getting used to this.

Tia offered her water. She took it gladly, recoiling from the smell of the bucket.

"Done?" She nodded. Tia removed the bucket and lidded it.

"Sorry." Fiona mumbled. "I wasn't expecting that." Tia shrugged.

"It happens. Seeing that-"

"It wasn't that."

"Do you want me to get a doctor?" Fiona shook her head.

"I'm not ill."

"Then-" Tia started.

"I'm pregnant." It felt odd to say it aloud, after so carefully not saying it. "Or I think I am." She conceded. Tia looked at her uncertainly.

"Do you want a test?"

"You keep pregnancy tests in a hospital for torture victims?" That was almost farcical. Tia nodded sadly.

"Sometimes, if a woman's brought in here, there are some men who'll-" Tia stopped abruptly. Fiona looked down. That made her feel naive. "Anyway, I'll get you one." Fiona nodded once.

"Thank you."

"And a chair. I swear there's a poltergeist in here with a fetish for chairs. If you take your eye of one..."

o0o0o0o

Fiona had no idea how long she'd been sitting there, it was dark outside. Sam had brought her food at midday and six, complaining about how unhelpful everyone was being. Chris needed to know how long Adam would be out of action, so he could get a substitute in. The doctors insisted they wouldn't know for a day or two. Sam insisted they were messing him about on suspicion of being a spook. There was also the question of how much Adam had given up, which neither of them had mentioned. The question of how long to get a substitute in for was being made more difficult by the fact that the test kit Tia had brought was unopened in Fiona's lap.

"Just go and piss on it, for heaven's sake." Sam had said when he'd seen it, then apologised, saying it was his stress talking, and that he'd had no right to say that.

Sam had gone now, and Tia. She was alone with Adam, holding his left hand in both of hers and listening to the regular beeping of the monitor, counting his heart beats. He stirred.

"Adam?" She breathed, squeezing his hand. "Adam, can you hear me?" He turned his head. He could hear her. He could hear her. "Adam, it's alright. It's all over now, it's all over. You're safe, it's alright." His eyes flickered open a crack and tilted towards the sound of her voice. "Adam?"

"Fiona." The word was slurred, faint, hoarse, but there could be no doubt as to what it was. Her name. He'd said her name.

"Adam." She repeated, her voice cracking with relief. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She felt like she was starting to do both. "Oh Adam."

"Fiona." He repeated, more clearly this time. He was waking up. Oh, thank God, he was waking up.

"Adam, it's OK. You're safe, it's over." She reached out to touch his face, but the images from the tape jumped before her eyes. She didn't want to hurt him more. She laid her hand on his shoulder instead. It was a minute or two before he spoke again.

"Where am I?" Fiona hesitated.

"Truro." She said, deciding on the truth. She saw fear flicker across Adam's half-focussed eyes. "They said you're going to be alright." No one had, as such, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Adam sighed gently.

"How long?"

"They got to you in the middle of last night, you got here early this morning." There was another long silence. Adam's eyes flickered down to the tube in his nose.

"What's that?"

"I have no idea." Adam half smiled, then winced.

"Are you alright?" What a stupid question, she thought as soon as she'd said it.

"I'm home." Adam replied after a moment. "And that's enough."


	17. Chapter 17

Come home

**I HAVE NOT finished yet. As I told a few of you in PMs, I have a cannon character to introduce (they turn up next chapter, any guesses as to who?) and someone to kill.**

17/5/98

Fiona walked back in to Adam's room and returned to her seat on his left. He looked at her steadily. He was much more with it this morning, they'd taken his morphine down and put local anaesthetic in his wounds. She'd eaten, he hadn't been able to face it for the pain in his mouth, so had been stomach tubed. She'd also just been sick again.

"Are you alright?" He asked her. She smiled.

"You're asking me?" He smiled back, lop-sided and black eyed, then looked at her sincerely. "Just before I left," He began. "it was day twenty-seven, and today is May the..."

"Seventeenth." Fiona supplied.

"So it's day... thirty-eight, or have we started again?" Fiona shook her head. There was a brief silence. "So..."

"I don't know Adam, I didn't check." He looked at her.

"Why?" She hesitated.

"I know it sounds stupid now, but, it was our news, our business, not just mine. I just... I didn't want you to be the last to know." Adam smiled at her.

"Well, I'm back."

"I know. I've got a test."

"So..."

"OK."

Fiona returned to Adam's side a few minutes later, hands washed, waiting. She'd sat down before she realised her hands were shaking.

"Hey." Adam said quietly when he noticed, picking up his right hand and offering it to her. She took it. "The worst it can be is negative, and if it is, we'll keep on trying."

"And if it's positive..." Adam just smiled at her. They didn't need words for that.

"Two lines for yes, one for no, none for `test is an idiot`, isn't it?" Adam asked. Fiona nodded, smiling nervously. That was so like Adam. "How much longer do you think?"

"I don't know." Fiona said softly, turning the strip of plastic in her hands. Adam leaned to look at it too. Fiona froze. Her breath caught in her throat. The uniform, clinical white of the panel was marked. There was no mistaking it. Two lines.

She turned to Adam. He was looking back at her, a grin spreading across his bruised face. She felt a laugh starting at the back of his throat and threw herself in to his arms, still wary of the left one. She wasn't sure how long they held each other, laughing for joy.

"I love you." She said quietly. "I love you so much." She felt the warmth of his reply against her ear.

"Good. Because I love you too." Fiona smiled and put her head closer to the uninjured side of his.

"I can't believe it."

"I can." Adam replied. "We did it. We won. There was never anything wrong with you. You're perfect. You always were." He started laughing again. Fiona felt herself joining in, tears in her eyes.

There was a tap on the door. Fiona drew back from Adam.

"Am I interrupting something?" Sam stuck his head round the door.

"Kind of." Adam replied. Sam raised his eyebrows.

"News?" Adam grinned up at Fiona.

"Are you going to tell him, or am I?"

"You can." Adam looked squarely at Sam.

"Fiona's pregnant." It was strange to hear Adam say it so calmly, so definitely, with that note of triumph in his voice. Fear over it had been driving her mad for days, now it was a point of pride. Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Congratulations." He walked to the right hand side of Adam's bed, clipboard in hand. "I'm sorry to dampen the mood, but there are some things Chris has ordered me to ask you." Adam sighed.

"I wondered when that was going to happen."

"Sorry." Sam said. "You know it has to be done." Adam nodded.

"Let's get it over with then."

"OK." Sam started. "Josif Mihailovitch; did you see him in captivity."

"Yes." Adam replied flatly. "We were cell mates for a few days."

"We were told he'd been executed. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"How sure are you about that?"

"Fairly. He was shot in the back of the head."

"You saw?"

"Yes." Adam said shortly. Fiona slid her hand in to his. Seeing that and knowing it could just have easily have been him... Sam nodded, then looked away, then back at Adam.

"Look, Adam, there's no easy way to ask this, it's a horrible question."

"Get on with it." Adam said, looking straight at Sam, who couldn't quite return the stare.

"What do we need to change around?" How much had Adam given up? That was what Sam was asking. "We won't judge you for it, no one expects you to have held out for that long under that kind of torture."

"Nothing." Adam said slowly. Sam was too slow to hide his surprise, so gave up. Fiona hadn't bothered in the first place. But she'd always known Adam was strong, just not quite that strong.

"Bloody hell mate." Sam said. "Not many could have done that. We saw what they put you through." Adam frowned.

"They sent us a tape." Fiona offered. "We asked for proof of life, so they sent us a tape of-" Adam nodded.

"So that's why they filmed it." There was a very long silence. Sam broke it.

"Chris asked me to ask you... if you want to come back." Adam didn't hesitate.

"Don't be daft Sam. Of course I'm coming back. If I'm not a spook, what am I?" Fiona smiled. It was a hard life, but all three of them had chosen it. "Just get Chris to get a temp for, what? Six weeks?"

"He may as well get one continuously." Fiona put in. "I'll be out of the field in... nine weeks or so."


	18. Chapter 18

Come home

**Here we meet the other cannon character. When do you guess who it is?**

2/6/98

Fiona reached the third floor and turned right, as she had done every day for years now, when she wasn't in the field. But she usually did it with Adam beside her. It had felt very strange to leave him at home this morning and go to work. Adam had joked about feminists throwing their hats in the air.

Two weeks, two days. It felt like less than that. Two weeks, two days since Adam had been retrieved. He'd been allowed home two days ago, still walking with a crutch and bandaged. He'd abandoned the crutch almost at once, preferring to limp around. His right leg still wasn't really bearing weight.

Section Lambda's office came in to view. Sam, Tash, Sarah and Jack (returned from South Africa) were facing the glass pods, looking at a man Fiona didn't recognise. He was maybe an inch shorter than Adam, had short black hair and, from what Fiona could see over his shirt collar, light brown skin. A middle eastern? They'd been given a middle eastern man as a temp? They were gold dust, ever since the civil war, they'd been recruited slowly, used a lot and killed frequently. Gold dust or not, the new boy was being subjected to the mandatory `interrogation` by those already on the unit.

Fiona emerged from the pods and was greeted shortly by the regulars, then all eyes were back on the new boy. Fiona passed him to stand next to Sarah and looked at him properly. She'd been right, he was middle eastern, very young, no scars she could see, but a bruise yellowed his jawline on one side. He had dark, attentive eyes and didn't look at all intimidated.

"Languages?" Sarah asked.

"English, Urdu, Fahrsi-"

"Fahrsi?" Tash repeated.

"Persian's name for itself. I read, write and understand eastern dialects of Arabic, but I don't think I could speak it under pressure."

"Arms training?" Jack asked.

"Most pistols."

"Knife?"

"No."

"Unarmed combat?"

"Learned by experience."

"Got hit though, didn't you?" Jack pointed at the new boy's bruise.

"He came off worse than me."

"Have you ever been caught?" Sam asked. They were on to experience? Fiona'd missed most of the fun.

"No, and pleased about it."

"Carried out an interrogation?"

"No."

"Killed?"

"Been killed, obviously not."

"Killed someone." Sam clarified.

"Yeah." But he obviously didn't like thinking about it, so Sam would press him.

"How?"

"Fight over a gun, I won, told him I'd shoot him if he tried to rush me. He didn't believe me. Him or me."

"Ever in cold blood?"

"No." Sam flicked his eyes across to Fiona, signalling her to take over.

"Snatches?"

"As part of a group."

"Building searches?"

"For people and things."

"Analysis?"

"Sporadically. I've spent most of my time in the field."

"Seen an ally killed?"

"Civilian, yes. Teammate, no."

"Created covers?"

"For myself and anyone else."

"Blackmail?"

"No."

"Honeytraps?"

"A few times."

"How effectively?"

"Think he'd be OK." Tash interjected, eyeing the new boy critically. "He's alright looking, isn't he?" The new boy raised his eyebrows.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Nothing on Adam." Fiona muttered to Tash.

"Didn't say he was." Tash muttered back.

"Experience wise," Sam said, "could be worse." That was as close as Sam ever came to being impressed with someone he didn't know.

"He's done a lot for his age." Sarah agreed.

"For those of you who were late," Sam started, "this is Zaffar Younis."

"Zaf to friends." Zaffar Younis added smiling. Sam didn't return the smile.

"My team currently consists of Sarah Ridgewell, Jack Ansong, Tash Sloan, Fiona Carter and Greg Langley, who still isn't here." Sam nodded at each of them in turn.

"Senior field officer?" Zaffar Younis asked.

"Is the one you're replacing, or rather covering for. Replacing Adam Carter would be a feat."

"Enough, all of you!" Chris walked in. "Let the poor man alone. Tash, the ambassador we discussed yesterday, apparently there is more information now. Start reading. Sarah, Argentina. Need I say more? Jack, you know what you should be doing. Fiona, clear your desk. You've got a backlog. Then look at Adam's. Sam, follow me. Mr. Younis, I will have work for you in fifteen minutes. Sorry to keep you. Also, don't mind this lot. They cross-examine everyone who comes in here."

Everyone moved off at once. Fiona kept half an eye on Zaffar Younis. Sometimes, this was when they showed the strain. Zaffar Younis didn't though. He just shook his head and smiled at the floor.

"You don't feel like giving me a hand, do you?" She asked him. There was information she still wanted from him, but she didn't quite dare ask outright with Chris watchin.

"OK. Sure." He walked over to her. "What do I do?"

"Anything from another unit, put here, asset, here, budget, HR, PR, psyc..."

"I get the idea."

"There." Zaffar Younis picked up a ream of paper from her intray and started sorting.

"Is the common surname between you and Adam Carter coincidence or relation?"

"We're married." Fiona replied. Zaffar Younis sighed.

"Oh well." Fiona smiled, almost in spite of herself. "Why's he out of action?" He asked, then seemed to change his mind. "You don't have to answer that if..."

"I don't have to answer any question anyone asks me. There may be consequences, but there's always a choice. Adam proved that." She'd seen a route to the information she wanted, and was rely on Zaffar Younis's curiosity.

"How so?"

"He spent eight days refusing to answer questions put to him by a gang of Serbs, whatever the cost." She carefully didn't look at Zaffar Younis to gage his reaction, but she heard his intake of breath. There was a reason they said `never be taken`.

"Is that why..?"

"Yes." She said, letting more pain show in her voice than usual. "It's a risk we run on this unit. We get used for everything, so exposed to all kinds of risk; we get shot at, stranded in the field, attacked by blown assets, imprisoned, ransomed... tortured." She let the silence hang.

"A bit different to Epsilon." Zaffar Younis said after a minute. "There, you get stranded in the field as a matter of course, you're almost imprisoned half the time, but you're very unlucky to get shot at, being beaten up is more likely, but the biggest risk isn't actually other people." Yes, this would lead her to the information she wanted.

"How so?"

"Often, it's disease. It's trafficking unit, so you're dropped off abroad with a locator beacon with three signals; onshore, standby and mayday, and there's a sort of... unofficial way of signalling contagion. You're given a way of contacting a people smuggling ring, or put in the way of a trafficking cell and you're taken back to the UK. Once you're moving, beacon goes to standby, then, in theory, you just wait for the SBS to turn up."

"But?" Fiona prompted. Zaffar Younis shrugged, then continued to cooperate.

"Things go wrong. The SBS can only operate in international or UK waters. While you're on the boat, you're at the mercy of the crew. If they know SBS are coming, they might try to kill and dump their cargo, then you just have to hide and try not to listen. That's when you send mayday. But as often, someone on the boat has typhus or cholera or yellow fever or something. They spread like wildfire once they're on board, because conditions are usually so bad. The guy I replaced was going out of Siera Leon, one of the other passengers had some sort of haemorrhagic virus. The spook signalled `contagion`, but the boat wasn't in international waters yet. By the time they got there five days later, everyone on board was dead." That was the information she'd wanted; the kind of work he'd been doing before, but still, she felt herself recoiling from him slightly. He noticed. "I'm clean." He held his hands up slightly, one still full of paper, as if to surrender. "I've spent most of the past fortnight in quarantine."

"For what?"

"Yellow fever and I don't have it. It's possible that no one did."

"So why..?"

"It's one of those annoying diseases that looks just like everything else, unless it goes septic." There was a pause. Zaffar Younis frowned. "You're still interrogating me, aren't you?" Fiona smiled.

"You're learning, aren't you?" Zaffar Younis smiled. "Why does six care? It's not usually a human rights organisation."

"PR mostly, I think. Lefties get their anti-trafficking, righties get their lower illegal immigration... And five hate illegals, they don't know who they are, they can't pull files on them."

"They'd hate being in six."

"Mr. Younis." Chris called, re-emerging from his office. "Sam and I will brief you now." Zaffar Younis nodded, put the last two envelopes down on piles and walked away, glancing back at Fiona in farewell.

o0o0o0o

Fiona got home at half past eight that evening to find Adam waiting at the door for her. They greeted each other and kissed; Adam had supper half-ready, so limped back over to the hob. That had almost made Fiona laugh.

"You're walking like Long John Silver. They gave you a crutch for a reason."

"I'm fine." Adam had insisted. "I think Long John Silver had a certain... je ne sais quoi, don't you?" Fiona shook her head at him. Adam squawked "Pieces of eight." once, then laughed with her.

"Adam, that's the parrot."

"Well, the two are inseparable, they're almost the same person."

"Like us?"

"Yeah. Like us."

Throughout supper, Adam had been communicative, engaged, cheerful about his injuries, joking about them, everything he knew she wanted to see. But as the evening wore on, she began to see flaws in his facade. A few times, she'd turned and seen him staring in to space, eyes distant, darkened in pain. He'd jumped when she'd called him back. When she lay down beside him, kissed him and curled up in his arms, she knew he wouldn't sleep. He hadn't in two weeks, not really. He'd lie awake, doze a few hours, then shout himself awake again. She'd wake too, he'd insist he was fine, she'd insist he wasn't. He'd pretend to be asleep again, but stay awake longer than she did, and repeat the cycle.

Fiona closed her eyes and bit the inside of her mouth gently. The prospect of the night ahead, and how many more in the weeks and months to come, scared her. Adam was her rock, but how he was shaking. She had to be strong, for all their sakes; for her own, for Adam's and for their baby's. One of her hands slid to the rim of her pelvis, unbidden protecting.

"By the time you're born," She thought to the life there, "if will all be alright. I promise."


	19. Chapter 19

Come home

**Another massive chapter, which took me a while. Apologies for that.  
**

12/7/98

"Water." Fiona said quietly to the bar tender. "But if you make it look like gin and tonic, I'll pay you for that instead." The youth looked at her in amazement, then complied. She picked her drink up and paid him, then walked away to a far corner of the bar, keeping herself visible.

"Delta to all units." Zaffar's voice sounded in her ear. "Bull entering the ring. Repeat: Bull entering the ring." Fiona knew better than to look. Her target was here.

"OK, Mr. Younis." Adam's voice, completely calm. "Job done down there, get back up here and stop bothering with call signs."

"Copy."

"I said lose the call signs."

"OK." Zaffar corrected himself. Fiona smiled and shook her hair back , raising her glass to her lips and starting to count silently. When she got to a hundred and fifty, she'd look.

She cast her eyes around the hotel bar, quiet tonight, almost devoid of women. Hardly surprising. All the lone women booked in to the hotel had been told that the bar would be closed tonight. Sarah was another lone woman, but apparently engrossed in a business discussion over the phone. Her target was standing by the bar, downing a vodka shot. His second, judging by the glass by his elbow. He looked nearly twice her age, greying hair, cold, black eyes. She stared at him with appraising eyes. One of the two bald men next to her target stared aggressively at her. She ignored him, keeping her eyes on her target, until she saw him notice her stare. She turned before he did, raising her glass to her lips again.

"OK, start the clock." Sarah's voice in her hear, only a whisper. "That's contact.

"4:22 to beat, Fiona." Sam said, from another room, upstairs somewhere. Fiona smiled to herself. Honeytrapping was almost a competitive sport in this unit. She knew there were bets riding on this, not to mention the arms contract her target had with the Taliban insurgents. She looked back at him and met his eyes calmly, raising her eyebrows a fraction. They held each other's gaze for a moment, then Fiona flicked her eyes over his body, shifting in her seat, allowing him a better view of hers. His eyes lingered on her breasts, which she thought looked better than usual at the moment, then slid down to her hips. She wasn't showing yet. The way he looked at her, that greed-filled, lust-filled, claiming stare, turned her cold inside, but she didn't look away. Their eyes met briefly once more, then he drained his glass and walked over to her, his two huge bodyguards just behind.

"I do not believe I have seen you here before." He said, voice bearing just a trace of his native Slovakian accent. "Have you just arrived?"

"No." Fiona replied languidly. "My hotel is half a mile away, but the bar is full of Chinese students tonight, all either girls or intolerably ugly." He laughed. "I take it you are staying here?"

"Forgive me," He said, extending his hand to her. "my name is Peter Ivanski. Yes, I am staying here." Rubbish. His name was Ivan Daureitch for a start.

"Jasmine Francis." She offered her hand. "I am here because I'm... very bored." He lifted her hand and kissed it.

"I think there we have something in common, Miss Francis. I am also very bored. Perhaps we can help each other." She tilted her head at him.

"Perhaps we can."

"What if I told you that I have a master suite upstairs, private, secluded."

"Double bed?"

"Of course." Fiona glanced at the bodyguards and leant in to her target.

"Mr. Ivanski, are you offering me a foursome, a little... adventurous, even by my standards, or are you going to ask these gentlemen to excuse us." The target smiled at her and looked up at the bodyguards.

"I do not think I am in any danger tonight. You may leave now. Here." He drew a few notes from his pocket. "Have a drink." The men took the money and walked away back to the bar. Ivan Daureitch leant in close to her, resting a hand on her leg. "Satisfied?" She smiled.

"Are you one for small talk, Mr. Ivanski?"

"Please, call me Peter, Miss. Francis, and no. Are you?"

"I'm going to insist that you call me Jasmine, and up to a point."

"What point?" Fiona hesitated as if thinking.

"About half a minute ago." Daureitch laughed.

"Well then, unless you fancy a walk to your hotel, may I suggest that we retire to my suite?" Fiona hesitated again.

"Indeed you may." She got to her feet. He followed, laying a hand on her back just below waist level, to lead her away. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to slap his touch away.

"3:56." Sarah said in to her microphone. "New personal best, Tash's record still stands."

"We are on an op, Sarah, keep it professional." Sam said coldly.

"Just because you lost." Adam added.

"You really aren't one for small talk, are you?" Fiona said, as Daureitch led her in the lift.

"No. You said that you weren't either."

"Well, silence can get a little uncomfortable. If I were to remark that... the decor of the lift is a poor match for that of the rest of the hotel, you could remark on the decor of the hotel in general." Usually a good way of keeping a target from being too forward in the lift.

"There are other ways to pass this time, Jasmine." He said, turning to her and leaning closer. Fiona leant back away from him. He grabbed hold of her waist. "I think you know what I mean." She forced a laugh.

"What, in a lift where anyone could walk in on us?" He pressed his mouth to hers. She jerked back. "Do me the courtesy of listening to me at least." He drew back, breathing melodramatically hard.

"I am sorry, Jasmine, but when a woman like you is so near, it becomes... hard to resist. I am a man. I cannot help how I feel." Mercifully, the lift doors opened at that point. Fiona stepped out, smiling.

"Flatterer." He followed her and gestured to lead her again, hand even lower this time. She'd have mock-slapped Adam's wrist if he'd done that in public. She forced herself not to shy away. She was nearly there. She could drop the act in a minute. Daureitch stopped outside a door and drew a key from his pocket. Room 196. The right one. He closed the door behind them. Was that the toe of someone's shoe sticking out from behind the curtain? Daureitch grabbed her and pushed her back against the wall, kicking the door closed. She turned her head away so he couldn't kiss her and laughed. Daureitch didn't see the response to her signal, the three armed men emerging and levelling pistols at his back, Sam and Adam crawling out from under the bed, the rest of Zaffar following his shoe out from behind the curtain.

"Get your hands off her." Adam snarled. Daureitch jumped round, shouting what Fiona presumed was a curse in Slovak. Fiona darted out from behind him. Daureitch made a grab for where her neck had been. Sam laughed.

"Hands above your head." Daureitch didn't move. "Come on, there are three of us, and you've given your bodyguards the night off." Very slowly, Daureitch complied.

"You were going to use me as a shield, weren't you?" Fiona asked calmly. "You didn't know if I was with them, but you would still have put me in harm's way." Daureitch spat at her, then spoke to Sam.

"You keep bints for this? Or you found her on a street corner?" No one rose.

"Beta, give your gun to Matrix and search him." Fiona walked round behind Zaffar and Sam to Adam, who gave her his gun and complied. No names in front of the target. Daureitch spat at Adam as he was searched, but otherwise offered no resistance. Adam pulled a mobile from Daureitch's jacket pocket and took its battery out, then threw what looked like a radio tracker on to the bed.

"Finnished?" Daureitch spat, as Adam started on his legs.

"No." Adam replied, pulling a folding knife out of Daureitch's pocket, then cuffing his hands behind his back.

"You will never get away with this. I have many powerful friends." Adam punched him hard in the stomach. Daureitch cried out and doubled over.

"Beta..." Sam growled in warning.

"That's for calling her a bint."

"You care for the whore? Don't let her see or she'll charge you-" Adam hit him in the guts again.

"Shut up, if you know what's good for you." Sam chuckled at Adam's remark. Zaffar grinned.

"Delta, check our escape route." Zaffar turned to the window, opened it and stuck his head out.

"Clear."

"Go then. Matrix, gun back to Beta, and follow Delta out. Be warned, it's a jump." Adam walked back to Fiona. She shook her head at him, smiling, and handed him the gun.

"Honestly."

"Honestly what?" He grinned back. Fiona shook her head and went to follow Zaffar out of the window. It was a jump, ten feet at least. Zaffar was looking up at her.

"Hang and drop." He said. "I'll catch you." Fiona hesitated. There had to be an easier way down, but she couldn't see it. "I'm not fifteen. I won't look up your skirt." She smiled and lowered herself out of the window.

Getting Daureitch out was more of a challenge. He protested loudly every step of the way and, once being held out of the window by Sam and Adam, he started kicking wildly, so Fiona and Zaffar couldn't get anywhere near him.

"Look." Adam panted after almost a minute. "One of my arms is about to give way, so I'll drop you. If you don't want a broken ankle, stop kicking so they can break your fall." Then Daureitch gave in. Fiona kept him covered while Zaffar helped Adam and Sam down. Adam was holding his left arm strangely. The five of them set off down the fire escape, Fiona ahead, with the knife, Zaffar and Adam frog-marching Daureitch, Sam at their backs. Daureitch seemed to have given up the fight. They started across the ground at the back of the hotel, towards the van where Sarah was waiting.

Footsteps. Fiona turned in time to see Daureitch's body guards charging from the darkness six feet away, straight towards her. She barely had time to cry out. One placed himself squarely in the space between her and Adam, the other grabbed her and pinned her against his body, one hand on her jaw, the other on the back of her head. Fiona froze. She'd seen a man's neck broken by hands alone. This was how it was done. That was the threat she was facing. But she still had the knife.

"Let the boss go." The front bodyguard said. "or he'll snap her neck."

"Proof of life." Sam shouted at once. Fiona could give him that. She drove the point of one heel in to her captor's foot, and brought Daureitch's knife up to his wrist, driving it in, twisting it as she pulled it free, feeling it scrape bone. Her captor howled and moved as if to break her neck, but his right fingers wouldn't grip, so slid harmlessly over her hair as he pulled her jaw left. She twisted away, out of his reach. The second guard turned and made a grab for her.

"Don't try it!" Adam shouted. The second guard froze, seeming to notice he was facing impossible odds. He raised his hands above his head. The first guard raised his left hand, cradling his right to his chest, turning his shirt crimson.

"We don't need you." Sam said calmly. "Get him to hospital. Walk away. We will disincentivise you if you give us any more trouble." The men looked at each other and nodded, then retreated. Daureitch shouted something after them. They ignored him.

No one moved until the guards had passed Sarah's van by twenty metres and turned on to the road. Then, they bundled their still-protesting prisoner in to the back, where Sarah was waiting with a hypodermic needle of something.

"OK." She said, once Daureitch was still. "Fi's time was 3:56, I said 4:25, Sam said 4:55, Adam said..."

"3:40." Adam interrupted.

"And Zaffar didn't bet."

"Spoilsport." Sam accused, smiling. Zaffar raised his hands.

"You shouldn't bet on what you don't understand. I will next time."

"Stake was a tenner, so there you go." Sarah handed a note to Adam.

"Got lucky, mate." Sam did the same.

"That wasn't luck." Adam replied. "Fiona's good."

"Still not as good as Tash, nowhere near."

"No, Sam. Tash's 0:24 doesn't count."

"0:24?" Zaffar repeated. "How did she do that?"

"Cheated." Adam replied.

"There is no rule against doing that." Sam protested. "Just it usually doesn't work."

"What?" Zaffar asked, looking from one to the other.

"She walked up to the target," Adam began, "gave a really bad chatup line, sat in awkward silence for a few seconds, apologised for the chatup line and asked the target if he fancied a-" He stopped himself, leaving Zaffar to guess the last word. Zaffar grinned incredulously.

"Still a honeytrap." Sam insisted.

"It's like winning a boxing match by shooting your opponent." Adam answered coldly. There was a moment's silence.

"Who's driving?" Sarah asked.

"You can." Sam said, sitting down on the floor of the van. "We take this one" He nodded at Daureitch, "home, dump him in a cell with scary noises and leave him till the morning, so he's wired when we interrogate him.

"Then we go home?" Fiona asked. There was still something she planned on doing tonight. She caught Adam's eye. They both smiled. Sam sighed theatrically.

"Yes, you can." He said to them, them muttered to Sarah and Zaffar, "Pair of bunny rabbits."

Adam slipped his hand in to hers, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.


	20. Chapter 20

Come home

**I'd like to appologise for the late arrival of this chapter (I sound like a train station). I've been ill for a few days, but I'm fine now. I told a few of you (and I think it's unfair to give a teaser unequally) that someone would die before the end of this fic.  
**

22/8/98

"Control?" Adam's voice over the satellite link. "First package is legit."

"Control receiving you." Fiona replied, from half way round the globe. "Proceed to second target." Somewhere, on the streets of Eritrea, on the North East coast of Africa, Adam set off, Zaffar presumably close behind. The young man had taken to following Adam around, even when on home turf.

"There." Zaffar said quietly. "That man has a gun in his pocket."

"Avoid." Chris ordered. "They'll shoot you on suspicion of being a foreign agent here. Go round." Fiona felt her heart begin to pick up speed.

"There's another one." Adam's voice this time.

"And one there." Fiona could hear the fear mounting in Zaffar's voice, though he was trying to hide it.

"Chris..." Adam said slowly. "There are men with dark glasses and ill-concealed guns on all sides. Please advise." Fiona looked anxiously up at Chris.

"Break the line, as fast as you can, then get to ground and wait."

"Second target?" Adam asked.

"If you think you're blown, forget it." There was a moment's silence, apart from the sounds of Adam and Zaffar breathing. She hated this. If she was out in the field next to Adam, hearing, seeing, feeling the danger with him, it thrilled her. Being half way round the world hearing it over a satellite link was horrible.

"He looked right at us as we passed." Zaffar said. "On opposite sides."

"He's following us." Adam added. Zaffar was breathing harder.

"Well, lose him." Chris said unhelpfully. "Split up and meet Firebrand at the rendez-vous."

"If one of us gets there first and leads them to Firebrand, Firebrand has to go. The other one of us would be stranded, and probably killed. They know what we look like." Adam replied

It felt like a very long time just waiting. Fiona knew what Adam and Zaffar would be doing; stopping randomly, unlikely turns, entering and leaving buildings unpredictably. If the only aim of the armed men was to kill them, either of them could die at any moment.

"Chris," Adam said, eventually, he sounded out of breath. "This isn't working. There are at least seven of them and they're coordinating well. We can't shake them."

"Then break for Firebrand. You can't fight. Stay to the houses as long as you can. Dash the rest of the distance."

"300 metres on open ground can be a very long way to run."

"They're waiting till there are no witnesses."Zaffar agreed. "Kind of redefines `run for your life`." Fiona bit her lip.

"Control to Firebrand." She said, over the other channel. "Prepare to leave imminently. Operatives may be under pursuit when they reach you." She could hear the nervousness in her own voice.

"Copy that, control. Standing by."

"Gun out." Adam's voice, presumably he was speaking to Zaffar. "On my count, we run, for all we're worth."

"OK." He sounded so scared.

"Three. Two. One." For maybe a count of five, there was no sound, but rushing air, Adam and Zaffar breathing. Then the shots started. Fiona winced as though they had been fired at her. Zaffar breathed what might have been a fragment of a prayer in Arabic. If Adam reacted at all, she didn't hear it. But there were no cries of pain, no signs that Adam or Zaffar had been hit.

Then someone cried out.

"Adam!" Fiona shouted, heart in her mouth.

"Zaffar!" Adam shouted. Zaffar shouted too, incomprehensibly.

"What's happening?" Chris added his voice to the mess. The shots continued, some closer now.

"Control." Adam's voice, breathing very hard. Someone was gasping in pain.

"Copy." Fiona replied at once.

"Control, Zaffar's hit. We're behind a boulder and pinned down."

"Can he walk?" Chris asked, inhumanly calm.

"No." Adam replied. Fiona heard a bullet land close to him. "Not far or fast."

"At all." Zaffar corrected. His voice was tight with pain.

"How serious is his wound?"

"I haven't looked carefully, I'm holding off half a dozen armed hostiles with a pistol!" Adam shouted.

"Likely to kill him in the next hour?"

"Pressure." Adam said, presumably to Zaffar. "If you die, it will be from blood loss. Don't think so, but these guys are going to overrun us. Is Firebrand armed?"

"Yes." Fiona replied. "Two assault rifles, two pistols."

"Chris, if you don't send them to us now, we are going to die. How long will it take the locals to figure out all they have to do is keep two firing over our heads to keep us down, then flank us. I'm out of ammo and half way through Zaffar's, then we're dead, if not before."

"Chris-" Fiona started desperately. He nodded.

"Control to Firebrand."

"We can hear shots, control."

"Go to them. One of the operatives is injured."

"Copy."

Hearing the gunfight over the next minute was unbearable, knowing any one of the shots she heard could kill Adam, or disable Firebrand, stranding them. Adam shouted for help getting Zaffar in to the truck. Zaffar yelled as he was moved. Adam shouted at the driver to go. Firebrand's engine growled.

"Are you clear?" Chris asked as the shots faded.

"They don't have transport." Adam panted. "We're out of their range of fire. I'd say so." Fiona dropped her head in to her hands, sighing with relief.

"Firebrand put the tarps back on and hide the guns."Chris ordered. "Adam, help."

"They can handle that. I need to look at Zaffar."

"OK. How badly is he hurt? He's being quite quiet." That was true. Zaffar hadn't said anything since he'd been put in the truck, but he was still breathing heavily. Then he yelled.

"Sorry." Adam said. "This has to be done." Zaffar growled and cursed in pain a few more times, before Adam concluded. "It winged him, it looks more like a bad knife wound than a gunshot. There's no sign of the bullet. Where's our nearest friendly medic?"

"Hold on." Fiona replied, pulling the database up. "Sorry Adam, the only one in a 100 mile radius is on the far side of the capital. You won't make it undetected."

"Airfield then?" One of Firebrand's crew asked.

"Airfield." Adam confirmed. "Morphine?"

"Sorry mate. Coedine's as good as it gets."

"That's crap." Zaffar remarked, voice still contorted with pain.

"Chris, can we go off coms for a bit?" Adam asked.

"Of course." Chris replied. Everyone knew why. Having a bullet wound cleaned and dressed was excruciatingly painful, no one bore it quietly (well, Adam bore it more quietly than most). Adam had just spared Zaffar the indignity of being heard. Fiona dropped her head in to her hands, sighed, then looked up.

"Chris,"

"Yes?"

"Don't do that to me again."


	21. Chapter 21

Come home

**Part of this scene was inspired by two lines in the show, one in episode 3.9, the other mid season 4. Any idea which two lines?**

**I probably won't post now until after Christmas, as the next chapter is long, so merry Christmas.**

27/9/98

"Legends!" Sam shouted, slamming a pile of files down on the table in the briefing room. "For the party being thrown by Mr Ivanhoff tomorrow. Adam, Marcus Fletcher. Fiona, Esmerelda Fletcher. Money made in stocks, Esmerelda's a trophy wife, bit dim."

"People will say anything to an idiot?" Fiona asked.

"Exactly."

"She's out of field work, Sam." Adam protested, opening his own file; LBS alumni, Oxford born and educated, rides in the somewhere-he'd-never-heard-of hunt.

"Pretending to be a dippy girl at a party barely counts. And no one will try to get her drunk."

"It's OK Adam." Fiona said distantly, skimming her own file. She wouldn't protest if it weren't. "Politically right wing and a good friend of two senior executives of the Guardian?" Adam sniggered. "I'm not sure that particular detail it."

"And who made me a huntsman?" Adam asked. "It's a clique with its own language. If there's a genuine one there, I'm in trouble."

"You're always in trouble." Sam replied. "Jack, Percy Sykes. Marketing consultant."

"Percy." Jack repeated. "I have never seen or heard of anyone called Percy who was either black or living in this half of the twentieth century, let alone both."

"It's all in the delivery, you'll be fine. We've pulled off dodgy covers before." Adam sighed. Sam would never ask for a cover to be changed. He'd sooner try to pull off Atsushi Chang as an alias. "Tash, you're staff, name badge says Fay."

"Why am I always a bloody waitress?"

"Let's face it, you struggle with being classy." Tash shrugged and glanced at Fiona.

"She gets to be a trophy wife."

"Ask specifically next time, you might get lucky. Zaffar, you're Hamish Maccubbin, and I'm Edward Klee, owns and accounting firm."

"Yours is alright." Jack said.

"Hamish, come on!" Zaffar protested. "Who the hell is going to believe that?"

"As I said to Jack, it's all in the delivery." Sam repeated. "Or should I say `it's all in the delivery`." He added, with a Scottish accent this time.

"Thank you Sam." Zaffar replied sarcastically. "Thank you so very much."

"You've pulled off English pseudonyms loads of times. I don't see what the problem is."

"English, Sam. Not Scottish. You don't get many middle eastern immigrants to Scotland. Most stay south."

"You'll cope." There was a silence of maybe a minute before Tash spoke.

"Zaffar,"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever wonder, like, if you're like..." Tash hesitated. "Do you ever wonder if you're British or Asian?" Zaffar looked at her for a moment, face showing pure incomprehension.

"Sorry?"

"I mean, like, you live in Britain, you work for MI6, you sound English when you talk, but you speak, like, Urdu and stuff, you're- I'm trying not to be racist- you're not white," Adam caught Sam's eye, then Fiona's. All of them were suppressing sniggers. "and I think it said on your file that you're Muslim, so..." She shrugged. Zaffar faltered.

"I... I don't know. Do you ever wonder if you're Norse, Celtic, Gaelic, Norman or..?"

"What?"

"Some of the ethnic groups in `white British`." Sam provided, keeping himself from laughing with a fairly obvious effort.

"Apparently not." Zaffar said. "So..."

"But they're all, like, really similar, so it doesn't really matter."

"I think she's trying to ask you if you've got an identity crisis." Sam put in, then resumed biting his lip to keep himself from laughing at Zaffar's facial expression. Fiona was leaning her head in one hand to conceal her face, under the pretence of reading her legend. Adam thought this was as good a time as any to practice keeping a straight face, so kept his eyes on Zaffar, who still looked very thrown at the question.

"No. It... It really doesn't bother me."

"But you're not all British, you're not all Asian, what do you think you are?" Zaffar sighed.

"To all intents and purposes, I'm British. I was educated here, I've lived here all my life, I risk my life for Britain on a regular basis. Anything else is just useful for pretending to be someone else, but not really a Scotsman."

Jack snorted. Fiona smiled, then went still, with a look on her face that usually meant she was remembering something a long time ago. She flicked her eyes up to his, then reached for his hand. He offered it to her, thinking she'd hold it, not sure why. But she didn't. She guided his hand to her abdomen, there was no hiding the fact she was pregnant now, and laid it flat against her. Movement. It felt like the wings of a moth beating under his fingers, their child, their son. He looked up at her. She met his eye and smiled, that, rare, disarmingly genuine, beautiful smile.

Then they noticed that everyone else was looking at them.

"Should we all just go?" Sam asked.

"Shut up Sam." Tash mock-slapped his wrist. "They're allowed to have a moment. What was it?" Eternally nosy. Fiona looked at the table, still smiling to herself.

"He moved."

"He?" Tash asked. Fiona nodded.

"Scan confirmed." Her voice, her face, everything about her was radiating that barely-controlled joy he knew she felt whenever she thought about their son. She wanted to be a mother, really wanted to, had done for a long time.

"Aw!" Tash cried.

"You're going `aw` at something you need ultrasound to see?" Sam asked. "You can go `aw` at it when it's born, and not before."

"I wasn't going `aw` at the baby. I was going `aw` at them."

"You're going `aw` at the Carters?" Sam returned. "That's even stranger. You're going `aw` at one of the best liars I've ever met and the man who's survived more torture than the rest of us together and never broken, yells once when shot, then shuts up and is the most effective assassin I've ever commanded. Now, are you going `aw` or learning your legend?"


	22. Chapter 22

Come home

**I hope everyone had a good Christmas. I have three chapters left to post, thanks for sticking with me.  
**

10/11/98

"Charlie to field base." Sarah's voice reached Fiona over the radio. "In position, and I cannot tell for the life of me were the others are."

"Alpha to whoever, ditto. And at least these bloody things are doing their jobs." Sam added.

"Delta in position." Zaffar's voice. "Does anyone else keep nearly putting their feet through these?"

"Yes." Sam replied. "Beta, where are you?"

"I'm coming." Adam growled. Fiona could hear the irritation in his voice. "I can't walk very fast in this thing. Who's stupid idea were they?"

"Greg's." Fiona replied, suppressing a laugh. Sarah had remarked that she wouldn't need disguising or a legend for this op (catching a traitorous Afghan asset), as she'd be wearing a burqa, there was no knowing what anyone looked like under those and no one spoke to women anyway. Greg had suggested that all the field agents wore them, as they were such effective disguises. Chris had agreed, partly, Fiona suspected, to punish Adam and Sam for winding him up mercilessly that morning. The four field agents were sweeping a market for the asset, Fiona was hiding in a van with four gunmen and the coms equipment, which was making Adam nervous.

"Beta in position." His voice jerked Fiona back to the present.

"All units, commence search." The market, Fiona knew, was large and unbelievably busy, but the asset would be there, so the search would go on. It was almost half an hour before anyone spoke on coms again.

"See him. Stall 31." Sarah murmured.

"Maintain visual." Sam responded at once, "All other units, move in."

"Coming."

"Copy." Adam and Zaffar responded in turn.

"Sam," Sarah said slowly, "he's staring at me."

"Look uncomfortable." Fiona advised. "No woman who wears a burqa likes being stared at by men."

"He's thinking about bolting." Adam said softly. "Look at his eyes. He knew we'd come after him."

"If he runs, we chase him." Sam ordered.

"We're at a real disadvantage if – oh shit. He's running." Adam sighed.

"Go." Sam ordered.

Heavy breathing and curses aimed at the burqas dominated coms for a few seconds, then the sound of a lot of cloth passing quickly over a microphone.

"Go to Zaffar's secondary mic." Adam panted. "He's ditched his burqa." As soon as Fiona did this, she heard someone cry out, not a voice she knew, then a series of thuds and cries of pain. She'd done enough ops like this to know what had happened. Zaffar had caught up with the asset and jumped on him to bring him down. They would be fighting on the ground now. Zaffar only had to hold the target until someone else got there, Sam was armed.

"Taliban." Sarah said sharply.

"Run." Sam ordered.

"Zaffar." Adam said in to his mic. "Drop him and-"

Three shots. Fiona froze. Shouting. Mixed Arabic and- what was that? Urdu? Fiona bit her lip. If that was Urdu, they were shouting at someone to get on their knees, hands up. They'd been caught. All of them. No, what did that mean? Women, go away. Women. The Taliban still thought Sam and Adam were women.

"What's going on?" She breathed.

"They've made Zaffar and the target kneel down with their hands up, and us go round the corner." Sam breathed. "We have to abort."

"We can't just leave him." Adam hissed at Sam. "He's a foreign Spook. You know what they'll do to him."

"One pistol versus two assault rifles, and I bet the other two are armed. Fiona's gunmen are too far." Sam growled. "We can't win that."

It sounded to Fiona like one of the Taliban was asking why Zaffar and the target had been fighting. The target answered at once, shouting that Zaffar was a foreign spy, an infidel, that he should be shot in public as an example.

"I'm sorry Zaf." Sam said. "I'm so sorry." Fiona dipped her head. Poor man. The Taliban would never let him go. He'd be lucky to be shot; the alternative was torture. No one got out of Taliban hands alive.

"He's not dead yet." Adam breathed. "Look at his face. He's taking it like he can't believe what he's hearing." As if to prove Adam's point, Zaffar cut across the target.

"What are you talking about? That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard." There Fiona's translation fell apart. It was something like `Do I look British to you?`. The Taliban asked Zaffar for his version of events.

"Come on Zaf." Adam breathed. "You can do this." Zaffar drew a breath and began. He was claiming he'd seen the target trying to break in to his father's shop, the target had, according to Zaffar, seen him coming, grabbed a burqa his mother had left out to mend and run off. The Taliban asked why, no, where the said burqa was. Zaffar presumably pointed, saying the target had dropped it (well, he'd probably said dropped rather than cut). That was a problem. There wouldn't be a burqa lying in the street... Oh, but there would. Zaffar had dropped it.

"Oh you clever boy." She whispered. The Taliban shouted something at the target, who said Zaffar had been disguised by the burqa. There was a very long silence. Fiona waited with bated breath.

All four Taliban burst out laughing. Zaffar joined in enthusiastically.

"Thank God for Greg." Sarah muttered. When the laughter had subsided, one of the Taliban asked Zaffar something else, something about why... why he was embarrassed? No, why he was exposed as he was. That made more sense. Under the burqa, Zaffar probably wasn't covered to their standards.

"Appologise and say you'd just had a wash." Adam suggested. Zaffar seemed to comply, even if Fiona didn't know half the words he used. His apology was very drawn out, the Taliban still seemed to be telling him off.

"We should beat him." Fiona knew that phrase. Zaffar drew a breath to steady himself.

"If that is what you must do..." Zaffar began nervously, but the Taliban ignored him. They seemed to be discussing what to do with the target. "Let me take him back to my father." Zaffar put in. "It was him that this man tried to rob." Fiona gave up there, but noticed that Zaffar offered to be beaten at the end. She had heard it said of the Taliban that offering to be beaten sometimes persuaded them not to beat you. Zaffar had either heard the same, was very brave, or very stupid.

But he was trying to win the target back. He'd just talked himself out of an impossible situation and he was still trying to complete his mission. That type of reckless bravery was usually the preserve of Sam and Adam.

It took the Taliban what felt like a long time to decide, the target still protesting loudly and increasingly desperately that Zaffar was a spy and would torture him to death.

"It is decided." One of the Taliban barked. "Tie their hands. Count of ten for that one. What is your name?"

"Mehmet." Zaffar replied without hesitation. "Mehmet Ali." The target protested that Zaffar was lying and was ignored.

"Father's name?"

"Ishmael Ali."

"Mehmet Ali, for exposing yourself, we will beat you, then we will give you the thief. You may not-" Something. Fiona didn't understand that bit. It sounded like Zaffar had to give the thief back at nightfall. Zaffar consented, breathing a little faster.

"Keep your lungs empty and be brave." Adam said quietly. "You're an officer of Her Majesty's Security Service. Don't show fear."

"No, play it up." Sam hissed. "They'd expect a spook to have a high tolerance for pain."

Thump. Zaffar cried out. It sounded like he'd been knocked sprawling. Fiona looked down. She hated listening to this kind of thing. It was far too reminiscent of what she and Adam had gone through in -.

When it ended, Zaffar was panting. He, the four Taliban and the target began to move, Zaffar leading the way, the target still protesting. Zaffar seemed to be alright. He was small-talking with the Taliban about the state of the country, whether keeping two wives was worth the trouble, `attempting` to speak a few words of English, deliberately badly, making the Taliban laugh. He was making a very good job of a situation which could have been disasterous.

Once only a few hundred metres from the van, Zaffar thanked the Taliban for their help (without a trace of sarcasm in his voice) and assured them that he would be fine from there. As soon as the Taliban were out of sight, Sam, Adam and Sarah closed in.

"Move." Sam growled. "Quietly." The target began to sob. It was only half a minute before the doors of the van opened and the target was thrown unceremonialy through them. Two of the gunmen dragged him in and proffered his arm to Fiona, who shot him with the first of the two syringes; Vallium. Adam, or maybe Sam, closed the doors of the van and waved to the driver.

"OK. Burqas of." It had been Adam at the door. Sam was moving the collapsing target.

"Bout time." Adam muttered, pulling his over his head. "Well done Zaf. I thought we'd lost you for a minute."

"Good job." Sam agreed. "I'd say you're a natural at that Zaf." Zaffar lifted his head..

"Zaf?" He repeated. "Is that your way of showing I've proven myself?"

"There's no explaining Sam." Sarah said, picking up a bottle of water. "Well done by the way."

"Are you alright?" Fiona asked, injecting the now unconscious target with ketamine, to keep him out. "That sounded like a fairly hard beating." Zaf shook his head.

"I'm fine. I've had much worse than that in Epsilon."

"`I've had worse` doesn't mean `I'm fine`." Adam said wryly. "If you're beaten two thirds to death, you've had worse if you're subsequently beaten half to death. That doesn't mean you're fine."

"Dear pot." Fiona started. Adam laughed.

"Touché."


	23. Chapter 23

Come home

**Enjoy New Year. See you in 2013.  
**

10/11/98

"You know, you only have to ask to take the lift." Adam said to Fiona as they reached the top of the last flight of stairs to the office. "You don't need to struggle on like this; I know you're tough, you don't need to prove it." Fiona took a moment to reply, she was quite badly out of breath.

"I'm fine Adam."

"Fi, you're seven months pregnant. No one expects you to be springing about like a gazelle."

"Adam," She repeated, "I'm fine, and I doubt I'll be the slowest this morning." Adam smiled. Sam, Jack and Zaf had gone out on the town last night.

"I think they were looking for girls rather than to get drunk." He said, stepping in to the pods. Only Greg was currently abroad. Sarah was at her desk, so were Jack and Zaf. "You made it in on time then."

"Of course we did." Zaf answered, not bothering to look up.

"Good night?"

"Excellent." Sam said, walking in with a pile of paper. "Should do Thursdays more often. Very favourable ratio."

"Ratio of what?" Tash followed Fiona through the pods.

"Men to women." Sam started to search through the papers. "Zaf did well, very well. We should try him for honey traps." Zaf smiled.

"How pretty was the girl?" Adam asked, sitting down. "Catching a plain girl quickly doesn't require any skill."

"No," Sam replied. "The girl was pretty. I'd say she was a six-and-a-half, maybe a seven."

"If she was a seven," Zaf cut in, "what's your idea of a nine?"

"Eight?" Jack suggested.

"Stop objectifying women's bodies." Sarah ordered. No one listened. Sarah's sporadic attempts to stop the men in the unit from being sexist were a standing joke, and it was almost worth enduring Fiona's death-stare just to wind Sarah up.

"No, mine was an eight." Sam protested. "And she was better looking than Zaf's."

"She was not." Jack protested. "He did better than either of us."

"Fine." Sarah said loudly. "Tash, Fiona, what do you thing Sam looks like without his shirt on?" Sam didn't react in the slightest, which Adam thought was impressive.

"What did she look like then?" Adam asked, feeling Fiona's eyes burning in to the side of his head.

"White, brown chest hair, muscley shoulders?" Tash suggested. "He fights so..."

"Tall, blonde, Nordic looking." Jack answered. "Zaf likes them lean, apparently."

"Do you think he's got back hair?" Sarah asked Tash loudly.

"She wasn't that thin." Zaf said, almost as if defending himself. Adam stayed quiet, wondering what he could say to most annoy Sarah, without incurring Fiona's wrath.

"Maybe." Tash shrugged. "He has got hairy arms."

"Some of the girls there were like mops." Jack remarked. Adam shook his head.

"That's just not attractive, is it?"

"What about Adam?" Sarah asked determinedly.

"Vanessa wasn't that thin." Zaf repeated defensively.

"Well, he's blonder than Sam, ain't he?" Tash replied.

"We're wired to go for physical indicators of fertility, that's what it comes down to." Adam ventured, thinking it would offend Sarah, but not Fiona.

"We could just as Fiona." Sarah's voice had got louder. Good sign. "Fiona, what does Adam look like without his shirt on?"

"What, broad hips and so on?" Sam asked. Fiona leaned towards Sarah and stage-whispered.

"That's for me to know, and enjoy, and you to wonder."

"Clear skin." Adam added.

"How well is he-"

"Enough!" Chris barked, walking in. "How old are you? Sam, is all the briefing material ready?"

"Of course, Chris. I did that first." Sam replied innocently.

"If this is what happens when seven of you are in the office at once, I'd better send one or two of you off to Malaysia or similar. Briefing, all of you, on the double!"


	24. Chapter 24

Come home

**Next chapter will be the last. Thanks to all those who've been reading and reviewing from the beginning.  
**

30/12/98

"Do you ever sleep?" Fiona said blearily to her son, knowing he could hear her, doubting he'd pay any attention. "Every time I get half way off..." She sighed, glancing at the clock. "Where's your father got to?" Another bout of kicking was the only response she got. She sighed. "Two more weeks, then you get a bit more space." She shifted slightly on the sofa and closed her eyes.

Phone. Fiona jerked awake and made a grab for it. Ten, and still no word from Adam.

"Hello?"

"Fi."

"Adam." She smiled. He was still alive then. "Where are you? What happened?"

"I'm sorry Fiona. Something came up. We-" He stopped abruptly.

"Adam?" She said quietly. No reply. "Adam, what's wrong?"

"Fi, we did a raid on this big old house in Kent, and-" He stopped again, breathing audible.

"Adam, what was it? What did you see?"

"Sam's dead." Fiona froze, mouth hanging slightly open. "He was shot. There were only two shots fired in the whole- and one of them just had to-" Sam. Sam, who laughed everything off, who'd perfected winding Chris up, who took no sugar in tea, two in coffee, who wrote in green ink wherever possible, who'd once broken in to Adam's computer account and set all his sound files to REM `Losing my religion` to persuade him to pick a more obscure password, who'd take on anyone in a fight, but froze at sight of a mouse. Fiona's breath caught in her throat. For a while, she and Adam were silent, still reeling in shock.

"Fiona, you know how... usually after... we, the rest of the unit-" Fiona nodded pointlessly. After a death, and MI6 unit came together, to mourn, to remember. They were the only ones who'd really known Sam; his family had thought he worked for DEFRA. "Usually, it's the section head, but-" Fiona nodded again. It was the section head who hosted. Another unwritten rule. But it was the section head they were mourning.

"You're senior field."

"I know."

"OK." That was her consent. The rest of the unit could come over. She didn't want to be left on her own.

"Thanks."

"How long?"

"Forty minutes?"

"OK. See you then."

"Love you."

"Love you too." Adam hung up.

Fiona had made a decent attempt at tidying up by the time she heard the key in the lock. Adam, Sarah, Zaf and Tash walked in. Tash's eyes were red rimmed, Sarah was white as a sheet and not looking at anyone, Zaf was pale, his jaw set. Adam? There was a deliberateness to his movements, a reluctance to meet her gaze and a fine spray of blood across the left side of his head. He and Zaf were each carrying a six pack of beer. Fiona started taking people's coats automatically.

"Sit anywhere." She instructed the group, taking Adam's beer from him. " Adam, go and wash your face." Adam looked at her confusedly. "Just go." He went. Fiona set the beer down on a low table in the living room and pulled the plastic binding off. Tash, Sarah and Zaf settled on the sofas. Fiona threw a beer to each of them, then sat down herself.

"You not drinking?" Tash asked. Fiona shook her head, glancing down at herself. "I'd never have the willpower." Adam returned, with a wet face, looking shakier than he had when he'd got home, and carrying a glass of the blood orange juice she drank instead of alcohol.

"I'm sorry," She said, taking it. "I have to ask. How long did-" Adam shook his head.

"Before he hit the floor. He probably didn't even feel it." Zaf shifted, head down, elbows on his knees. "It's the worst one to see though, isn't it?" Adam asked him. Zaf nodded.

"Where?" Fiona asked tentatively.

"Left eye." Adam said shortly. Fiona closed her eyes and drew a breath. That was a horrible one to see. Zaf shook his head and shifted again.

"My head wasn't eight inches from his. It could so easily-"

"I know." Adam cut Zaf off. "So was mine. It could have just as easily have been either of us." Fiona's breath caught in her throat. Thank God it hadn't been Adam. Oh thank God. Thank God.

"Who shot the guy who did it?" Tash asked.

"Adam." Zaf said quietly, not looking up. "I froze."

"No you didn't." Adam replied gently. "You responded when I told you to get down in case there were more."

"I didn't have the sense to shoot back though."

"I didn't realise Sam was dead." Adam said. "Not for a moment. Not till I'd shot the other guy."

"He didn't yell." Zaf said. "The section head in Epsilon, Bartoschz, used to say that if someone takes a bullet and doesn't yell, they're dead or dying."

"Not always." Adam said quietly. Sarah gave a choking laugh.

"D'you remember at those docks in Nigeria?" Adam smiled and nodded.

"What?" Fiona asked.

"You were elsewhere." Adam said. "Sarah, Sam and I were hiding in bushes by a dock, eavesdropping. One guy checked for eavesdroppers by firing a few rounds in to said bushes."

"Sam took one in the elbow. We'd all have been in big trouble if he'd yelled, he kind of... reverse yelled. He did this weird gasp, pulled faces but they didn't hear him."

"He didn't take it `in` the elbow as such." Adam corrected. "It clipped him. It still bled a lot, and presumably hurt a lot, but it wasn't a dangerous wound. Actually, knowing Sam, that wouldn't have made any difference."

"He'd have tried to carry on with a fence post through his guts." Tash said quietly, eyes still down. Fiona nodded.

"Tenacious to the point of fanatical, brave to the point of reckless." Adam nodded.

"OK, finest hour?"

"Sierra Leon that time." Sarah said after a moment. "When he bluffed his way in to the mercenary briefing, bugged, and recorded all the orders." A few half-laughs chased each other round the room, then died out.

"Recruiting me." Tash said, smiling sarcastically. Adam sighed.

"Well, I suppose we all make mistakes." Tash almost laughed.

"You were a private detective, weren't you?" Zaf asked. Tash nodded.

"Our investigations got caught up and we kept running in to each other. One time, I followed him for more than half an hour, with two wigs, a coat and a hoodie. Eventually, he turned round, grabbed me, I pretended to be a hooker, he didn't buy it, and told me to get lost or I'd get killed."

"But you didn't?" Zaf asked.

"No, I kept following him, offered him an intel swap, gave him intel he really needed, he gave me bull, then came back a week later, apologised and offered me a job." Adam laughed.

"Sam always insisted that hand-picked Spooks are better than applicants."

"He was one, of course." Fiona said quietly. "I'd say dropping his tracker and mic in to a shipment of guns in Kazakhstan, while under fire. We all thought he was dead, but we found the terrorists, then he walked in to the embassy, barefoot and limping, two days later." Everyone smiled fleetingly, then looked at Zaf, who shrugged.

"I didn't know him that long, but from what I saw, it was working out which one of the South African spooks was genuine." Fiona remembered that. Four South Africans, all claiming to be Baras Norman, a spook they were meant to be working with, all with iron-clad legends. Sam had done it in less time than it took to get through to the real Baras Norman's superior for a codeword.

"Taking Caroline Verna alive." Adam said. "An Argentinean spymaster, we needed her to hostage swap one of our guys out. She kept trying to kill herself, put a poisoned barb through Sam's trousers, but he'd worn enough padding to save himself. I do not know how he did it. He'd never say."

It went on, the battery of anecdotes; worst mistake, time he made you laugh the most, time you most wanted to hit him... It was gone midnight before Fiona and Adam were alone. Adam sighed deeply as he locked the door. Fiona was beside him in a moment. He turned to her and pulled her in to his arms. She kissed his neck. He reciprocated.

"Thank God it wasn't you." She breathed. "Thank God it wasn't you." Adam didn't reply. He was shaking.

"You don't think of someone like Sam..."

"I know. I know. It's alright."

"I've still got you."

"I know. Let's get you to bed." Adam nodded and let her lead him away. He'd be alright. Tonight would be hard, but he'd survive. He always did.


	25. Chapter 25

Come home

**This is it. Thanks to all of you who've been with me since October, I've been really pleased with the support this fic has had. Some of you have asked if I will be writing more. The answer is, not for a few months, and even then, not Spooks. I have a promise to keep first, then I will return if I can.  
**

17/1/99

It was over. Adam glanced at the clock again. 05:36. Nearly two hours. Nearly two hours, he'd been a father. Fiona was quiet now, so was their son, almost definitely Wesley. It had been scary to go through, holding Fi while she screamed, the midwives said she'd been relatively quiet, Adam hadn't agreed.

The baby shifted and cooed. Fiona's eyes flickered half way open. She shushed it.

"You alright?" Adam asked her softly, as soon as the baby was quiet again.

"I've had worse." She sounded so tired, he could read pain in the tendons of her neck.

"Coming from you, that doesn't mean much."

"Dear Pot," Adam smiled.

"Touché." He kissed her on the temple. "We won." She nodded once

"We won." There'd never been anything wrong with her. She'd always been whole, she'd always been perfect. She opened her eyes more fully, looking down at their son, joy lighting her face through her exhaustion.

"I love you." Adam whispered to her. "Both of you."

"Good." Fiona whispered back. "Because I love you too."

Fin

**Thanks to my Mum (beta) for introducing me to Spooks, for persuading me to pen my fanfiction and stoically reading it all.**

**My Grandmother, for inspiring me to write (look for `Footsteps to Freedom` and `Broken Warrior` on Amazon. If I am ever half the writer she is, I will be very happy).  
**

**My Brother, for learning with me to manipulate characters and worlds together, in to stories which were never written, which no one else heard.  
**

**My Lord Jesus Christ for... well, everything. It would take me an age to write out.  
**


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